UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 


BY 

ELIHU  ROOT 


COLLECTED  AND  EDITED  BY 

ROBERT  BACON 

AND 

JAMES  BROWN  SCOTT 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
Oxfobd  University  Press 

1917 


COPTBIGHT,  1917 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


• ' "I 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Introductory  Note vii 

The  Iroquois  and  the  Struggle  for  America    ....        3 

Address  at  the  tercentennial  celebration  of  the  discovery  of 

Lake  Champlain,  Plattsburg,  July  7,  1909. 

Samuel  Kdrkland:  Founder  of  Hamilton  College  .   .      17 
Address  at  the  exercises  attending  the  laying  of  the  corner 
stone  of  the  new  Dartmouth  Hall  and  the  visit  of  the  Earl  of 
<  Dartmouth  to  Dartmouth  College,  October  26,  1904. 

The  Centenary  of  Hamilton  College 23 

Historical  Address  at  the  centennial  celebration,  at  Clinton, 
J  New  York,  June  17,  1912. 

Address    as    Honorary    Chancellor    of   Union   Uni- 
versity, Schnectady,  New  York,  June  10,  1914     .    .       45 

The  Home  of  the  Oneidas 61 

Address  before  the  Society  of  the  Sons  of  Oneida,  New  York 

=>  City,  March  14,  1903. 

St 

James  Schoolcraft  Sherman 65 

-1  Address  at  the  memorial  exercises,  United  States  Senate, 

n  February  15,  1913. 

=*      Inauguration  of  President  Brown 71 

e  .... 

Response  for  the  Educational  Foundations  at  the  inauguration 

of  Dr.  Elmer  Ellsworth  Brown  as  Chancellor  of  New  York 
University,  November  9,  1911. 

The  Object  and  the  Opportunity  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity         75 

Remarks  upon  the  conferring  of  the  doctorate  of  law,  June  8, 
1904. 

£      The  Supreme  Treasure  of  Our  Country 81 

□  Remarks  upon  receiving  the  degree  of  doctor  of  laws  from  the 

University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  October  22,  1915. 

^      The  Dutch  Founders  of  New  York 85 

Remarks  at  the  sixty-first  anniversary  dinner  of  the  Saint 
Nicholas  Society  of  the  City  of  New  York,  December  7, 1896. 


iv  CONTENTS 

John  Hat 91 

Address  at  the  dedication  of  the  John  Hay  Library,  Brown 
University,  November  11,  1910. 

Gbover  Cleveland 105 

Memorial  Address  at  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York, 
March  18,  1909. 

Chester  Alan  Arthur 109 

Address  at  the  unveiling  of  a  statue  of  President  Arthur  in 
Madison  Square,  New  York,  June  13,  1899. 

William  Tecumseh  Sherman 115 

Address  at  the  unveiling  of  St.  Gaudens'  statue  of  General 
Sherman,  in  New  York,  May  SO,  1903. 

The  Great  Reconciliation 119 

Address  at  a  reunion  of  the  Union  and  Confederate  veterans 
who  fought  at  Fort  Fisher.  Utica,  New  York,  September  9, 
1909. 

The  Union  League  Club 123 

Address  at  a  meeting  of  the  club  to  celebrate  its  fortieth  anni- 
versary, February  6,  1903. 

The  City  of  New  York 129 

Remarks  at  the  celebration  of  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  its  municipal  government, 
May  26,  1903. 

The  Old  and  the  New  New  York 133 

Address  at  a  dinner  of  the  Lotos  Club  in  honor  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  War,  New  York,  May  9,  1903. 

Benjamin  Franklin 141 

Address  on  presenting  to  France  the  gold  medal  authorized  by 
Congress.  The  Franklin  Bicentennial,  Philadelphia,  April  20, 
1906. 

Reply  of  M.  Jusserand,  the  French  Ambassador  .    .    .     143 

Jules  Martin  Cambon 145 

Address  at  a  farewell  dinner  to  the  French  Ambassador, 
November  15,  1902. 

The  Assassination  of  President  Carnot     H9 

Remarks  in  the  New  York  constitutional  convention  on  a 
resolution  tendering  to  the  Government  of  France  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  convention  in  the  death  of  President  Carnot  by 
assassination,  June  26,  1894. 


CONTENTS  v 

Canada  and  the  United  States 151 

Address  at  a  dinner  given  by  the  Pilgrims  of  the  United 
States  in  honor  of  the  Right  Honorable  Earl  Grey,  Governor- 
General  of  Canada,  New  York,  March  31,  1906. 

The  Builders  of  Canada 157 

Address  at  a  banquet  of  the  Canadian  Club  of  Ottawa, 
Canada,  January  22,  1907. 

The  Canadian  Reciprocity  Agreement 163 

Address  in  the  United  States  Senate  upon  the  bill  to  promote 
reciprocal  trade  relations  with  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  June 
21,  1911. 

Art  and  Architecture  in  America 189 

Remarks  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the  American  Institute  of 
Architects,  Washington,  D.  C,  January  11,  1905. 

Charles  Follen  McKim 197 

Address  at  a  memorial  meeting,  New  Theater,  New  York, 
November  23,  1909. 

Charles  Follen  McKim 198 

Address  at  a  memorial  meeting  of  the  American  Institute  of 
Architects,  Washington,  D.  C,  December  15,  1909. 

Francis  Davis  Millet     205 

Address  at  a  memorial  meeting  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Arts,  Washington,  D.  C,  May  10,  1912. 

The  Place  of  Cardinal  Gibbons 211 

Address  at  the  Cardinal  Gibbons  Civic  Demonstration,  Balti- 
more, June  6,  1911. 

Joseph  G.  Cannon 213 

Remarks  at  a  dinner  in  his  honor  at  Washington,  D.  C,  Feb- 
ruary 15,  1913. 

A  Tribute  to  Theodore  Roosevelt 217 

Address  at  a  banquet  in  honor  of  the  Secretary  of  War.  The 
Union  League  Club,  New  York,  February  3,  1904. 

John  Pierpont  Morgan 227 

Address  at  the  memorial  meeting  of  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce of  the  State  of  New  York,  April  3,  1913. 

John  Marshall  Harlan 233 

Address  at  the  memorial  exercises  in  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  December  16,  1911. 


vi  CONTENTS 

Melville  Weston  Fuller 237 

Address  at  the  proceedings  of  the  bar  and  officers  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  December  10,  1910. 

Judge  John  Davis 239 

Address  at  a  memorial  meeting  of  the  bar  of  the  Court  of 
Claims,  May  16,  1902. 

Justice  George  Carter-Barrett      241 

Address  at  the  meeting  of  the  bench  and  bar  in  memory  of  the 
Honorable  George  Carter-Barrett,  New  York  City,  Novem- 
ber 10,  1906. 

Justice  Charles  H.  Van  Brunt 245 

Address  in  presenting  to  the  Appellate  Division  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State  of  New  York  in  the  First  Department,  a 
portrait  of  the  Honorable  Charles  H.  Van  Brunt,  first  presid- 
ing justice  of  the  court,  June  8,  1897. 

Business  and  Politics      ' .     249 

Address  at  a  reception  of  the  Union  League  Club  of  Philadel- 
phia, in  his  honor,  March  23,  1915. 

The  Preservation  of  American  Ideals 259 

Address  at  a  dinner  of  the  Union  League  Club,  Chicago, 
Illinois,  in  commemoration  of  the  birthday  of  Washington, 
February  22,  1904. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine 267 

Address  at  the  ninety -ninth  annual  banquet  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Society  of  New  York,  December  22,  1904. 

The  Causes  of  War 275 

Address  at  a  dinner  of  the  New  York  Peace  Society,  in  recog- 
nition of  the  services  of  the  Secretary  of  State  to  international 
peace,  February  26,  1909. 

The  Effect  of  Democracy  on  International  Law  .    .     281 
Presidential  address  at  the  eleventh  annual  meeting  of  the 
American  Society  of  International  Law,  Washington,  D.  C, 
April  26,  1917. 

The  Spread  of  International  Law  in  the  Americas  .     295 
Remarks  at  a  dinner  of  the  Division  of  International  Law  of 
the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  International  Peace  and  the 
Pan-American  Scientific  Congress,  Washington,  D.C.,  Decem- 
ber 30,  1915. 

Index 301 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

The  collected  addresses  and  state  papers  of  Elihu  Root,  of 
which  this  is  one  of  several  volumes,  cover  the  period  of  his 
service  as  Secretary  of  War,  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  as 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  during  which  time,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  his  only  client  was  his  country. 

The  many  formal  and  occasional  addresses  and  speeches, 
which  will  be  found  to  be  of  a  remarkably  wide  range,  are 
followed  by  his  state  papers,  such  as  the  instructions  to 
the  American  delegates  to  the  Second  Hague  Peace  Confer- 
ence and  other  diplomatic  notes  and  documents,  prepared 
by  him  as  Secretary  of  State  in  the  performance  of  his  duties 
as  an  executive  officer  of  the  United  States.  Although  the 
official  documents  have  been  kept  separate  from  the  other 
papers,  this  plan  has  been  slightly  modified  in  the  volume 
devoted  to  the  military  and  colonial  policy  of  the  United 
States,  which  includes  those  portions  of  his  official  reports  as 
Secretary  of  War  throwing  light  upon  his  public  addresses  and 
his  general  military  policy. 

The  addresses  and  speeches  selected  for  publication  are 
not  arranged  chronologically,  but  are  classified  in  such  a  way 
that  each  volume  contains  addresses  and  speeches  relating 
to  a  general  subject  and  a  common  purpose.  The  addresses 
as  president  of  the  American  Society  of  International  Law 
show  his  treatment  of  international  questions  from  the 
theoretical  standpoint,  and  in  the  light  of  his  experience  as 
Secretary  of  War  and  as  Secretary  of  State,  unrestrained  and 
uncontrolled  by  the  limitations  of  official  position,  whereas 
his  addresses  on  foreign  affairs,  delivered  while  Secretary  of 
State  or  as  United  States  Senator,  discuss  these  questions 
under  the  reserve  of  official  responsibility. 


viii  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

Mr.  Root's  addresses  on  government,  citizenship,  and 
legal  procedure  are  a  masterly  exposition  of  the  principles 
of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  government  established  by 
it;  of  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  understand  the  Constitu- 
tion and  to  conform  his  conduct  to  its  requirements;  and 
of  the  right  of  the  people  to  reform  or  to  amend  the  Con- 
stitution in  order  to  make  representative  government  more 
effective  and  responsive  to  their  present  and  future  needs. 
The  addresses  on  law  and  its  administration  state  how  legal 
procedure  should  be  modified  and  simplified  in  the  interest 
of  justice  rather  than  in  the  supposed  interest  of  the  legal 
profession. 

The  addresses  delivered  during  the  trip  to  South  America 
and  Mexico  in  1906,  and  in  the  United  States  after  his  return, 
with  their  message  of  good  will,  proclaim  a  new  doctrine  — 
the  Root  doctrine  —  of  kindly  consideration  and  of  honorable 
obligation,  and  make  clear  the  destiny  common  to  the 
peoples  of  the  Western  World. 

The  addresses  and  the  reports  on  military  and  colonial 
policy  made  by  Mr.  Root  as  Secretary  of  War  explain  the 
reorganization  of  the  army  after  the  Spanish-American  War, 
the  creation  of  the  General  Staff,  and  the  establishment  of  the 
Army  War  College.  They  trace  the  origin  of  and  give  the 
reason  for  the  policy  of  this  country  in  Cuba,  the  Philippines, 
and  Porto  Rico,  devised  and  inaugurated  by  him.  It  is  not 
generally  known  that  the  so-called  Piatt  Amendment, 
defining  our  relations  to  Cuba,  was  drafted  by  Mr.  Root,  and 
that  the  Organic  Act  of  the  Philippines  was  likewise  the  work 
of  Mr.  Root  as  Secretary  of  War. 

The  argument  before  The  Hague  Tribunal  in  the  North 
Atlantic  Fisheries  Case  is  a  rare  if  not  the  only  instance  of  a 
statesman  appearing  as  chief  counsel  in  an  international 
arbitration,  which,  as  Secretary  of  State,  he  had  prepared 
and  submitted. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE  ix 

The  miscellaneous  addresses,  including  educational,  his- 
torical, and  commemorative  addresses,  the  political  speeches 
in  days  of  peace,  and  the  stirring  and  prophetic  utterances 
in  anticipation  of  and  during  our  war  with  Germany,  deliv- 
ered at  home  and  on  special  mission  in  Russia,  should  make 
known  to  future  generations  the  literary,  artistic,  and  emo- 
tional side  of  this  broad-minded  and  far-seeing  statesman  of 
our  time. 

The  publication  of  these  collected  addresses  and  state 
papers  will,  it  is  believed,  enable  the  American  people  better 
to  understand  the  generation  in  which  Mr.  Root  has  been  a 
commanding  figure,  and  better  to  appreciate  during  his  life- 
time the  services  which  he  has  rendered  to  his  country. 

Robert  Bacon. 
James  Brown  Scott. 

September  16,  1917. 


MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 


THE    IROQUOIS    AND    THE    STRUGGLE    FOR 

AMERICA 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  TERCENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 

DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN,  PLATTSBURG. 

JULY  7,  1909 

The  four  addresses  with  which  this  volume  opens,  are  intimately  associated  in 
that  they  have  to  do  with  the  early  history  of  New  York  State,  the  relations  between 
the  white  settlers  and  the  aborigines,  and  the  efforts  to  educate  the  Indians  under 
the  devoted  guidance  of  Eleazar  Wheelock  and  particularly  of  Samuel  Kirkland,  the 
founder  of  the  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy,  out  of  which  grew  Hamilton  College,  at 
whose  centennial  celebration  in  1912  Mr.  Root  made  the  historical  address. 

IT  is  no  ordinary  event  that  we  celebrate.  The  beauty  of 
this  wonderful  lake,  first  revealed  to  the  eye  of  civilized 
man  by  the  visit  of  Samuel  de  Champlain  three  hundred 
years  ago;  the  powerful  personality,  noble  character,  and 
romantic  career  of  the  discoverer;  the  historic  importance 
of  this  controlling  line  of  strategic  military  communication, 
along  which  have  passed  in  successive  generations  the  armies 
whose  conflicts  were  to  determine  the  control  and  destinies 
of  great  empires;  the  value  to  Canada  and  to  the  United 
States  of  this  natural  pathway  of  commerce;  the  growth  and 
prosperity  of  the  noble  states  that  have  arisen  on  the  oppos- 
ing shores;  their  contributions  to  the  wealth  of  mankind,  to 
civil  and  religious  liberty,  to  the  world's  progress  in  civiliza- 
tion —  all  these  withdraw  the  first  coming  of  the  white  man 
to  Lake  Champlain  from  the  dull  and  uninteresting  level  of 
the  commonplace:  while  comparative  antiquity,  so  attractive 
and  inspiring  to  the  people  of  the  New  World,  lends  dignity 
and  romance  to  the  figures  and  the  acts  that  have  escaped 
oblivion  through  centuries. 


4  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Even  a  dull  imagination  must  be  stirred,  as  it  dwells  upon 
the  influence  which  the  events  attending  the  discovery  were 
to  have  upon  the  issue  of  the  great  struggle  between  France 
and  Great  Britain  for  the  control  of  the  continent;  the 
struggle  between  the  two  white  races  for  the  opportunity  to 
colonize  and  expand,  and  between  the  two  systems  of  law 
and  civil  polity,  for  the  direction  and  development  of  civiliza- 
tion among  the  millions  who  were  to  people  the  vast  region 
extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  the  Rio 
Grande  to  the  frozen  limits  of  the  North. 

Authentic  history  records  that  late  in  June,  1609,  Cham- 
plain,  accompanied  by  several  white  companions  and  by  a 
great  array  of  Algonquin  Indians  of  the  Saint  Lawrence 
Valley,  left  the  French  station  on  the  site  of  the  old  Indian 
village  of  Stadacona,  where  now  stands  the  city  of  Quebec, 
upon  an  expedition  intended  by  the  Indians  for  war  and 
by  the  whites  for  exploration.  They  proceeded  in  canoes  up 
the  Saint  Lawrence  and  turned  south  into  the  Richelieu, 
and,  in  the  early  days  of  July,  after  many  vicissitudes  and 
the  desertion  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Indians,  they  dragged 
their  canoes  around  the  rapids  of  the  river  and  came  to  the 
foot  of  the  lake  on  whose  shores  we  stand.  They  proceeded 
up  the  lake  with  all  the  precautions  of  Indian  warfare  in  an 
enemy's  country.  As  they  approached  the  head  of  the  lake, 
they  rested  concealed  by  day,  and  urged  forward  their 
canoes  by  night.  At  last,  in  this  month  of  July,  three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  they  came  upon  a  war  party  of  the  Iroquois. 
Both  parties  landed,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  present 
Ticonderoga,  and,  with  the  coming  of  the  dawn,  joined 
battle.  Protected  by  the  light  armor  of  the  period,  Cham- 
plain  advanced  to  the  front  in  full  view  of  the  contending 
parties,  and,  as  the  Iroquois  drew  their  bows  upon  him,  he 
fired  his  arquebus.  One  of  his  white  companions  also  fired. 
The  Iroquois  chief  and  several  of  his  warriors  fell,  killed  or 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  5 

wounded;  and  the  entire  band,  amazed  and  terror-stricken 
by  their  first  experience  with  the  inexplicable,  miraculous, 
and  death-dealing  power  of  fire-arms,  fled  in  dismay.  They 
were  pursued  by  the  Algonquins,  some  were  killed,  some 
were  taken  prisoners,  and  the  remainder  returned  to  their 
homes  to  spread  through  all  the  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  the 
story  that  a  new  enemy  had  arisen  bringing  unheard  of  and 
supernatural  powers  to  the  aid  of  their  traditional  Algonquin 
foes.  The  shot  from  Champlain's  arquebus  had  determined 
the  part  that  was  to  be  played  in  the  approaching  conflict 
by  the  most  powerful  military  force  among  the  Indians  of 
North  America.  It  had  made  the  confederacy  of  the  Iroquois 
and  all  its  nations  and  dependencies  the  implacable  enemies 
of  the  French  and  the  fast  friends  of  the  English  for  all  the 
long  struggle  that  was  to  come. 

A  century  or  more  before  the  white  settlement,  five  Indian 
nations  of  the  same  stock  and  language,  under  the  leadership 
of  extraordinary  political  genius,  had  formed  a  confederacy 
for  the  preservation  of  internal  peace  and  for  common 
defense  against  external  attack.  Their  territories  extended 
in  1609  from  the  Saint  Lawrence  to  the  Susquehanna;  from 
Lake  Champlain  and  the  Hudson  to  the  Genesee,  and,  a  few 
years  later,  to  the  Niagara.  There  dwelt  side  by  side  the 
Mohawks,  the  Oneidas,  the  Onondagas,  the  Cayugas,  and 
the  Senecas,  in  the  firm  union  of  Ho-de-no-saunee  —  the 
Long  House  of  the  Iroquois. 

The  Algonquin  tribes  that  surrounded  them  were  still  in 
the  lowest  stage  of  industrial  life,  and  for  their  food  added 
to  the  spoils  of  the  chase  only  wild  fruits  and  roots.  The 
Iroquois  had  passed  into  the  agricultural  stage.  They  had 
settled  habitations  and  cultivated  fields.  They  had  extensive 
orchards  of  the  apple,  made  sugar  from  the  maple,  and 
raised  corn  and  beans  and  squash  and  pumpkins.  The  sur- 
rounding tribes  had  only  the  rudimentary  political  institution 


6  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  chief  and  followers.  The  Iroquois  had  a  carefully  devised 
constitution,  well  adapted  to  secure  confederate  authority  in 
matters  of  common  interest,  and  local  authority  in  matters 
of  local  interest. 

Each  nation  was  divided  into  tribes,  the  Wolf  tribe,  the 
Bear  tribe,  the  Turtle  tribe,  etc.  The  same  tribes  ran 
through  all  the  nations,  the  section  in  each  nation  being 
bound  by  ties  of  consanguinity  to  the  sections  of  the  same 
tribe  in  the  other  nations.  Thus  a  Seneca  Wolf  was  brother 
to  every  Mohawk  Wolf,  a  Seneca  Bear  to  every  Mohawk 
Bear.  The  arrangement  was  like  that  of  our  college  societies 
with  chapters  in  different  colleges.  So  there  were  bonds  of 
tribal  union  running  across  the  lines  of  national  union;  and 
the  whole  structure  was  firmly  knit  together  as  by  the  warp 
and  woof  of  a  textile  fabric. 

The  government  was  vested  in  a  council  of  fifty  sachems, 
a  fixed  number  coming  from  each  nation.  The  sachems 
from  each  nation  came  in  fixed  proportions  from  specific 
tribes  in  that  nation;  the  office  was  hereditary  in  the 
tribe;  and  the  member  of  the  tribe  to  fill  it  was  elected 
by  the  tribe. 

The  sachems  of  each  nation  governed  their  own  nation  in 
all  local  affairs.  Below  the  sachems  were  elected  chiefs  on 
the  military  side  and  keepers-of-the-faith  on  the  religious  side. 
Crime  was  exceedingly  rare;  insubordination  was  unknown; 
courage,  fortitude,  and  devotion  to  the  common  good  were 
universal. 

The  territory  of  the  Long  House  covered  the  watershed 
between  the  Saint  Lawrence  basin  and  the  Atlantic.  From 
it  the  waters  ran  into  the  Saint  Lawrence,  the  Hudson,  the 
Delaware,  the  Susquehanna,  and  the  Ohio.  Down  these 
lines  of  communication  the  war  parties  of  the  confederacy 
passed,  beating  back  or  overwhelming  their  enemies  until 
they  had  become  overlords  of  a  vast  region,  extending  far  into 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  7 

New  England,  the  Carolinas,  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  to  the  coast  of  Lake  Huron. 

They  held  in  subjection  an  area  including  the  present 
states  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware, 
Maryland,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  West  Virginia,  northern  Virginia 
and  Tennessee,  and  parts  of  New  England,  Illinois,  Indiana, 
Michigan  and  Ontario. 

Of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  New  World,  they  were  the 
most  terrible  foes  and  the  most  capable  of  organized  and 
sustained  warfare;  and  of  all  the  inhabitants  north  of 
Mexico  they  were  the  most  civilized  and  intelligent. 

The  century  which  followed  the  voyages  of  Columbus  had 
been  for  the  northern  continent  a  period  of  exploration  and 
discovery,  of  search  for  gold  and  for  fabulous  cities  and  for 
a  passage  to  the  Indies,  of  fugitive  fur  trade  with  the  natives, 
of  fisheries  on  the  Banks,  and  of  feeble,  disastrous  attempts 
at  occupation,  but  not  of  permanent  settlement.  Ponce  de 
Leon  and  DeSoto  and  Verrazano,  Cartier  and  the  Cabots 
and  Drake  and  Frobisher  and  Gilbert  and  Gosnold,  had 
brought  the  western  coast  of  the  Atlantic  out  from  the  mists 
of  fable;  but  they  had  left  no  trace  upon  its  shores.  Jean 
Ribaut  and  his  French  Huguenots  had  attempted  to  do  for 
their  religion  in  Florida  what  the  Pilgrims  did  in  the  follow- 
ing century  on  the  coast  of  Massachusetts;  but  their  colony 
was  destroyed  with  incredible  cruelty,  in  the  name  of  religion, 
by  the  ferocious  Spaniard,  Menendez;  and  the  colony  of 
Menendez  was  in  turn  destroyed  by  the  Gascon,  De  Gour- 
gues,  save  a  feeble  remnant  on  the  site  of  Saint  Augustine. 
Raleigh,  with  noble  constancy  and  persistency,  had  wasted  his 
fortune  in  repeated  and  vain  attempts  to  establish  a  colony  in 
Virginia.  On  the  sites  of  the  modern  Quebec  and  Montreal, 
at  Tadousac,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Saint  Croix,  and  at  Port 
Royal,  Jacques  Cartier  and  Roberval,  Pontgrave  and  De 
Monts,  Poutrincourt  and  Lescarbot,  had  seen  their  heroic 


8  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

and  devoted  efforts  to  establish  a  new  France  brought  to 
naught  by  cold  and  starvation  and  disease.  In  that  month 
of  July,  1609,  in  all  the  vast  expanse  between  Florida  and 
Labrador,  no  settlement  of  white  men  held  its  place  or 
presaged  the  coming  of  the  future  multitude,  save  at  James- 
town, behind  the  Capes  of  Virginia,  where  Christopher  New- 
port's handful  of  colonists  had  barely  survived  two  years  of 
privation,  and  at  Quebec,  where  the  undaunted  Pontgrave 
and  Champlain  only  one  year  before  had  again  gained  a 
foothold.  At  Jamestown,  the  mournful  record  of  the  winter 
of  1609  to  1610  shows  us  that  in  the  spring  but  sixty  of  the 
colonists  were  living.  At  Quebec,  twenty-eight  Frenchmen 
with  Champlain  had  braved  the  rigors  of  a  Canadian  winter, 
and  in  the  spring  of  1609  but  eight  remained  alive. 

In  this  same  month  of  July,  1609,  the  Half  Moon  of 
Henry  Hudson  was  repairing  damages  in  Penobscot  Bay 
after  her  voyage  across  the  Atlantic,  and  preparing  to  sail 
on  to  the  noble  river  that  still  bears  her  commander's  name. 

The  field  was  open;  the  hands  upon  the  margin  that 
reached  out  to  grasp  control  seemed  few  and  feeble;  but  the 
period  of  preparation  was  past.  The  mighty  forces  that  were 
to  urge  on  the  most  stupendous  movement  of  mankind  in 
human  history  had  already  received  their  direction.  The 
time  was  ripe  for  the  real  conflict  to  begin,  and  it  had  its 
momentous  beginning  when  the  Chief  of  the  Mohawks  fell 
before  the  arquebus  of  Champlain  at  Ticonderoga. 

The  conditions  which  limited  the  powers  and  directed  the 
purposes  of  the  various  countries  of  Europe  in  the  early 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  made  it  inevitable  that  the 
struggle  for  American  control  should  ultimately  become  a 
single  combat  between  France  and  Great  Britain. 

It  is  true  that  Spain  had  overturned  the  tribal  govern- 
ment of  the  Aztecs  and  held  possession  along  the  northern 
shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  a  vantage  ground  from  which 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  9 

she  might  well  have  pressed  to  the  northward  successful 
plans  of  occupation.  But  Spain  had  no  such  plans.  When 
the  search  for  treasure  had  failed,  and  it  was  plain  that  no 
more  Perus  and  Mexicos  were  to  be  found,  the  dark  forests 
of  the  North  Atlantic  offered  no  attractions  to  the  Spanish 
conquistadoreSy  who  sought  the  spoils  of  conquest  rather 
than  the  rewards  of  labor. 

With  the  death  of  Philip  the  Second,  the  decline  of  Span- 
ish power  had  already  begun.  His  successors  were  feeble  and 
incapable.  The  stern,  repressive,  and  despotic  control  over 
body  and  soul  effected  by  the  union  of  military  and  reli- 
gious organization  during  the  first  century  of  united  Spain 
was  accompanied  by  a  marvelous  efficiency  and  energy  that 
made  Spain  for  a  time  the  foremost  maritime  and  colonizing 
power  of  the  world.  The  price  of  that  efficiency,  how- 
ever, was  the  loss  of  the  only  permanent  source  of  national 
energy,  the  independence  and  free  initiative  of  individual 
character  among  her  citizens.  Thenceforth  Spain  was  no 
longer  to  sway  the  rod  of  empire,  but,  holding  it  weakly  in 
feeble  hands,  was  to  lose  one  by  one  the  world-wide  pos- 
sessions of  Charles  the  Fifth  and  Philip  the  Second,  until  the 
time  when  the  penalty  of  her  national  sin  against  civil  and 
religious  freedom  should  have  been  paid,  and  the  native 
strength  and  nobility  of  her  character  should  be  able  to 
reassert  themselves  in  a  period  of  renewed  growth  and 
reestablished  power  and  prosperity;  a  time  which  we  hope 
and  trust  has  already  come. 

Portugal,  still  clinging  to  the  fruits  of  her  explorers' 
genius,  and  sturdy  Holland,  strong  in  her  newly  won  free- 
dom, were  looking  not  to  North  America  but  to  Brazil  and 
to  the  Orient  for  their  opportunities  to  expand;  and  the 
future  colony  of  New  Amsterdam  was  destined  to  be  readily 
transferred  to  the  English  for  the  sake  of  greater  opportuni- 
ties to  the  Dutch  East  India  Company. 


10  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Germany  was  not  yet  a  maritime  power.  Loosely  com- 
pacted under  the  failing  hegemony  of  the  House  of  Austria, 
she  was  upon  the  threshold  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in 
which  the  most  frightful  slaughter  and  devastation  were 
to  destroy  her  cities,  lay  waste  her  fields,  reduce  her  popu- 
lation from  thirty  millions  to  twelve  millions,  and  set  back 
her  civilization  for  centuries. 

Into  that  vortex  of  destruction  Sweden  also  was  about  to 
be  drawn,  and  her  forces  were  to  be  engrossed  in  the  struggle 
for  national  existence,  so  that  the  hopes  of  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus  for  a  new  Sweden,  upon  the  banks  of  the  Delaware, 
were  to  fail  of  fruition,  and  the  Swedish  colony  in  America 
was  to  pass  with  hardly  a  struggle  into  the  hands  first  of  the 
Dutch  and  then  of  the  English. 

Prussia  was  a  dependent  dukedom.  Russia  had  still 
three-quarters  of  a  century  to  wait  before  Peter  the  Great 
was  to  begin  to  lead  her  from  semi-barbarism  into  the  ranks 
of  civilized  powers.  Italy  was  a  geographical  expression 
covering  a  multitude  of  petty  states. 

Of  all  the  peoples  of  Europe,  only  the  French  and  the 
English  possessed  the  power,  the  energy,  the  adventurous 
courage,  the  opportunity  and  the  occasion,  for  expansion 
across  the  Atlantic.  The  field  and  the  prize  were  for  them, 
and  for  them  alone. 

Upon  the  throne  of  France  was  Henry  the  Fourth,  the 
greatest  of  French  kings.  In  the  governing  class  of  French- 
men, political  and  religious,  were  the  virile  strength,  the 
intellectual  acumen,  the  romantic  chivalry,  the  strong  pas- 
sions, the  love  of  glory,  the  capacity  for  devotion  to  ideals; 
which  were  to  make  possible  the  rule  of  Richelieu,  the 
ascendency  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  the  political  idealists  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  tremendous  social  forces  whose 
outbreak  in  the  French  Revolution  appalled  the  world,  and 
the  armies  of  Napoleon. 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  11 

In  England  the  reign  of  great  Elizabeth  had  just  closed. 
It  was  the  England  of  Spenser  and  Shakspere  and  Bacon; 
of  Cecil  and  Raleigh;  of  Drake  and  Frobisher.  John  Hamp- 
den and  Cromwell  and  Milton  were  in  their  childhood.  For 
four  centuries  since  Magna  Charta  Englishmen  had  become 
accustomed  to  the  assertion  of  individual  rights  of  the  citizen 
against  arbitrary  power.  Since  the  repudiation  of  Roman 
supremacy  over  the  national  church,  by  Henry  the  Eighth, 
three  generations  had  become  wonted  to  the  assertion  of 
religious  freedom.  King  James's  translation  of  the  Bible 
was  in  progress  and  nearly  completed.  The  deep  religious 
feeling  of  the  Puritan  reaction  against  both  Roman  and 
royal  Episcopacy  that  was  to  cost  Charles  the  First  his  life 
and  James  the  Second  his  throne,  had  already  become  a  con- 
trolling motive  among  a  great  multitude  of  the  English 
people. 

From  these  two  countries,  each  possessed  of  great  powers, 
each  endowed  with  noble  qualities,  proceeded  the  colonists 
who  were  to  dispute  for  the  possession  of  America.  The 
French  movement  was  in  the  main  governmental,  aristo- 
cratic, proceeding  from  State  and  Church,  designed  to  extend 
and  increase  the  power,  dominion,  and  glory  of  the  King, 
to  convert  the  Indians  to  the  true  faith,  and  to  extend  over 
them  and  over  all  the  lands  through  which  they  roamed, 
and  over  all  who  should  come  after  them  and  take  their 
place,  the  same  iron  rule  of  conformity  against  which  the 
Huguenots  of  France  were  vainly  contending.  The  English 
movement  was  in  the  main  popular,  proceeding  from  the 
people  of  England  who  wished  to  escape  either  Church  or 
State  at  home  and  to  find  freedom  in  a  new  world  for  the  prac- 
tice of  their  religion  or  the  pursuit  of  their  fortunes  according 
to  their  own  ideas.  Some  of  the  English  colonies  braved 
the  hardships  of  exile  rather  than  conform  against  their  con- 
sciences to  requirements  of  practice  and  doctrine  which  the 


12  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

English  Church  imposed.  Some  sought  for  fortune  in  the 
New  World  because  the  State  had  so  distributed  the  prop- 
erty and  so  closed  the  avenues  for  advancement  in  England 
that  they  must  needs  seek  opportunities  elsewhere  if  at  all. 

For  centuries  the  struggles  between  civil  and  religious 
absolutism  on  the  one  hand  and  individual  liberty  on  the 
other  were  waged  alike  in  France  and  in  England.  The 
attempt  to  colonize  America  came  from  one  side  of  the  con- 
troversy in  France  and  from  the  other  side  of  the  same 
controversy  in  England.  The  virtues  of  the  two  systems 
were  to  be  tried  out  and  the  irrepressible  conflict  between 
them  was  to  be  continued,  in  the  wilderness. 

For  capable  and  efficient  leadership,  for  far-sighted  and 
comprehensive  plans,  for  clear  understanding  of  existing 
conditions  and  prevision  as  to  the  future,  for  conspicuous 
examples  of  heroic  achievement  and  self-devotion,  the  palm 
must  be  awarded  to  the  French  over  their  English  com- 
petitors. There  are  few  chapters  in  history  so  full  of  roman- 
tic interest,  so  compelling  in  their  demands  for  sympathy 
and  admiration,  as  the  record  of  the  century  and  a  half 
that  began  with  the  wooden  fortress  of  Champlain  under 
the  bluff  at  Quebec,  and  ended  with  the  fall  of  Montcalm 
on  the  Heights  of  Abraham. 

The  world  owes  many  debts  to  France.  Not  the  least  of 
these  is  the  inspiration  the  men  of  every  race  can  find  in 
the  noble  examples  of  such  explorers  as  Nicollet  and  Joliet 
and  La  Salle;  such  leaders  as  Champlain  and  Frontenac  and 
Duquesne  and  Montcalm;  and  such  missionaries  as  La  Caron 
and  Breboeuf  and  Marquette.  They  strove  for  the  execu- 
tion of  a  great  design,  holding  hardship  and  suffering  and 
life  of  little  account,  in  their  loyalty  to  their  religion  and 
their  king.  With  infinite  pains  they  won  the  friendship  of 
the  Indians  of  the  Saint  Lawrence  and  the  far  Northwest; 
they  carried  the  flag  of  France  to  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  13 

sippi;  they  drew  a  cordon  of  military  posts  up  the  Saint 
Lawrence,  across  to  the  Mississippi,  and  down  to  the  Gulf, 
well  designed  to  bar  the  westward  advance  of  the  English 
colonies,  to  save  the  great  West  for  their  race,  and  thence 
to  press  the  English  backward  to  the  sea.  Their  soldiers 
were,  as  a  rule,  better  led,  better  organized,  and  moved  on 
more  definite  and  certain  plans  than  the  English.  Occa- 
sionally some  born  fighter  on  the  English  side  would  accom- 
plish a  great  deed,  like  Pepperell  at  Louisburg,  or  some  man 
of  supreme  good  sense  would  bring  order  out  of  confusion, 
as  did  Franklin  and  Washington;  but  as  a  rule  colonial 
legislatures  were  slow  and  vacillating;  colonial  governors 
were  indifferent  and  short-sighted;  and  colonial  movements 
were  marked  by  a  lack  of  that  definite  responsibility,  coupled 
with  power,  so  essential  to  successful  warfare. 

Fortunately  for  England,  between  the  two  parties  all  along 
the  controlling  strategic  line  from  this  Lake  Champlain  to 
the  gateway  of  the  West  at  Fort  Duquesne,  stretched  the 
barrier  of  the  Long  House  and  its  tributary  nations.  They 
were  always  ready,  always  organized,  always  watchful. 
They  continually  threatened  and  frequently  broke  the  great 
French  military  line  of  communication.  Along  the  whole 
line  they  kept  the  French  continually  in  jeopardy.  Before 
the  barrier  the  French  built  forts  and  trained  soldiers  — 
behind  it  the  English  cleared  the  forests  and  built  homes  and 
cultivated  fields  and  grew  to  a  great  multitude,  strong  in 
individual  freedom  and  in  the  practice  of  self-government. 
Again  and  again  the  French  hurled  their  forces  against  the 
Long  House,  but  always  with  little  practical  advantage. 
At  one  time  De  Tracy,  the  viceroy,  burned  villages  and  laid 
waste  the  land  of  the  Iroquois  with  twelve  hundred  French 
soldiers.  At  another,  De  La  Barr,  the  governor,  with  eigh- 
teen hundred;  at  another,  De  Nouville  with  two  thousand; 
at  another,  Frontenac  with  six  hundred;   at  still  another, 


14  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Frontenac  with  a  thousand.  Always  there  came  also  a  cloud 
of  Algonquin  allies.  Always  the  Iroquois  retired  and  then 
returned,  rebuilt  their  villages,  replanted  their  fields,  resumed 
their  operations,  and  in  their  turn  took  ample  revenge  for 
their  injuries. 

So,  to  and  fro  the  war  parties  went,  harrying  and  burning 
and  killing;  but  always  the  barrier  stood,  and  always  with 
its  aid  the  English  colonies  labored  and  fought  and  grew 
strong.  When  the  final  struggle  came  between  the  armies  of 
France  and  England,  the  French  had  the  genius  of  Mont- 
calm and  soldiers  as  brave  as  ever  drew  sword;  but  behind 
Wolfe  and  his  stout  English  hearts  was  a  new  people,  rich 
in  supplies,  trained  in  warfare,  and  ready  to  fight  for  their 
homes.  South  Carolina,  the  records  show,  furnished  twelve 
hundred  and  fifty  men  for  the  war;  Virginia,  two  thousand; 
Pennsylvania,  two  thousand  seven  hundred;  New  Jersey, 
one  thousand;  New  York,  two  thousand  six  hundred  and 
eighty;  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island,  one  thousand; 
Connecticut,  five  thousand;  Massachusetts,  seven  thou- 
sand. It  was  not  merely  the  army — it  was  that  a  nation 
had  arrived,  too  great  in  numbers,  in  extent  of  territory,  in 
strength  of  independent,  individual  character,  to  be  over- 
whelmed by  any  power  that  France  could  possibly  produce. 
The  conclusion  was  foregone.  A  battle  lost  or  won  at 
Quebec  or  elsewhere  could  but  hasten  or  retard  the  result  a 
little.    The  result  was  sure  to  come  as  it  did  come. 

In  all  this  interesting  and  romantic  story  may  be  seen 
two  great  proximate  causes  of  the  French  failure  and  the 
English  success;  two  reasons  why  from  Quebec  to  the 
Pacific  we  speak  English,  follow  the  course  of  the  common 
law,  and  estimate  and  maintain  our  rights  according  to  the 
principles  of  English  freedom. 

One  of  these  was  the  great  inferiority  of  the  Indian  allies 
of  the  French,  and  the  great  superiority  of  the  Indian  allies  of 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  THE  COLONIES  15 

the  English;  the  effective  and  enduring  organization,  the 
warlike  power,  of  the  Iroquois,  and  their  fidelity  to  the 
"  covenant  chain  "  which  bound  them  to  our  fathers.  The 
other  cause  lies  deeper:  It  is  that  peoples,  not  monarchs, 
settlers,  not  soldiers,  build  empires:  that  the  spirit  of  abso- 
lutism in  a  royal  court  is  a  less  vital  principle  than  the  spirit 
of  liberty  in  a  nation. 

In  these  memorial  days  let  there  be  honor  to  Champlain 
and  the  chivalry  of  France:  honor  to  the  strong  free  hearts 
of  the  common  people  of  England;  and  honor  also  to 
the  savage  virtues,  the  courage  and  loyal  friendship  of  the 
Long  House  of  the  Iroquois. 


SAMUEL  KIRKLAND:  FOUNDER  OF 
HAMILTON  COLLEGE 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  EXERCISES  ATTENDING  THE  LAYING  OF  THE 
CORNER  STONE  OF  THE  NEW  DARTMOUTH  HALL  AND  THE  VISIT 
OF  THE  EARL  OF  DARTMOUTH  TO  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE, 
OCTOBER  26,  1904 

The  President  of  the  College,  in  introducing  Mr.  Root,  said: 
The  relation  of  Dartmouth  College  to  Hamilton  College  has  been  far 
deeper  than  may  appear  on  the  surface.  The  relation  has  been  one  of 
a  common  motive,  and  as  each  college  has  taken  its  own  way  it  has  acted 
under  the  impulse  of  that  common  motive.  I  present  to  you  tonight  a 
trustee  and  benefactor  of  Hamilton  College;  and,  in  presenting  him  to 
you,  I  express  the  sentiment  of  every  American  citizen,  that  we  honor 
Hamilton  College  in  its  graduate,  who  illuminates  every  subject  in  politics 
upon  which  he  thinks  and  concerning  which  he  speaks  or  acts.  We  feel 
that  when  he  puts  his  hand  to  any  political  problem,  that  problem  is 
solved,  not  violently,  but  surely.  I  present  to  you  the  Honorable  Elihu 
Root. 

AFTER  all  the  charming,  eloquent,  and  interesting 
speeches  to  which  we  have  listened,  I  feel  like  that 
inmate  of  an  insane  asylum  who  inquired  of  a  visitor  passing 
through  his  ward  if  he  had  a  piece  of  toast  about  him.  The 
visitor  said,  "  No,  I  have  no  toast  about  me."  "  I  am 
sorry,"  said  the  patient,  "  that  you  have  not  a  piece  of  toast. 
I  am  a  poached  egg,  and  I  want  to  sit  down."  But  I  cannot 
sit  down  on  my  toast  without  saying  something  about  it. 

Few  men,  either  of  Dartmouth  or  Hamilton,  know  how 
conspicuous  an  illustration  the  two  colleges  are  of  that 
power  of  transmission  which  President  Eliot  has  so  clearly 
set  before  us  tonight.  In  the  year  1761,  Samson  Occom,  the 
Indian  student  whose  brilliant  receptivity  of  education  led 

17 


18  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Eleazar  Wheelock  to  give  his  life  to  the  lines  of  instruction 
that  ultimately  produced  Dartmouth  College,  taking  up  his 
life-work,  went  as  a  missionary  to  his  own  people  and  estab- 
lished himself  among  the  Oneidas  on  the  banks  of  the 
Oriskany  as  it  flows  into  the  Mohawk. 

In  that  year,  1761,  Samuel  Kirkland,  a  Connecticut  boy, 
became  a  student  in  Eleazar  Wheelock's  school  at  Lebanon. 
There  he  learned  the  Indian  tongue;  there  he  devoted  him- 
self to  a  like  mission  with  Samson  Occom.  In  the  year 
1766,  that  year  in  which  Samson  Occom,  with  Nathaniel 
Whitaker,  was  the  vogue  in  London,  preaching  before  princes 
and  nobles  and  creating  a  notable  interest  in  the  cause  of 
Indian  education,  —  that  year,  in  which  he,  with  Nathaniel 
Whitaker,  was  getting  from  the  King  his  gift  of  two  hundred 
pounds  and  making  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth  the  patron 
and  promoter  of  the  new  enterprise,  Samuel  Kirkland 
followed  his  friend  and  became  in  his  turn  a  missionary 
to  the  Oneidas. 

Shortly  after,  came  to  the  same  place  James  Deane,  a  grad- 
uate of  Dartmouth  in  the  first  class, — a  member  of  the  college 
before  the  buildings  were  erected,  living  in  the  wilderness  and 
gathering  from  Wheelock's  inspiration  the  same  spirit. 

For  years  these  three,  the  students  of  Wheelock  at  Lebanon 
and  at  Hanover,  labored  together  with  the  Oneidas,  — 
Samuel  Kirkland  the  leading  spirit  of  the  three.  Patient, 
enduring,  persistent,  through  perils  of  river  and  perils  of 
forests,  amid  cruel  and  savage  foes,  enduring  the  heats  of 
summers  and  the  deep  snows  of  winters,  living  in  a  log  hut, 
travelling  through  the  vast  and  trackless  wilderness,  one  by 
one  he  gained  the  friendship  and  the  confidence  of  those 
fierce  warriors,  until  he  became  the  friend  and  the  father  of 
them  all.  War  swept  to  and  fro  in  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk; 
but  in  due  time,  when  peace  had  come,  when  civilization  had 
approached  near  enough  to  the  wilderness,  he  in  his  turn 


SAMUEL  KIRKLAND  19 

put  into  practice  the  lessons  he  had  learned  from  Wheelock 
and  imitated  Wheelock's  example. 

We  find  him  in  the  year  1792  attending  the  commence- 
ment of  Dartmouth,  bringing  with  him  the  Indian  chieftain 
Onandago;  and  in  that  same  autumn  of  1792  he  applied  to 
the  newly-formed  Board  of  Regents  of  the  University  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  at  Albany,  for  a  charter  for  an  academy, 
in  which  he  had  enlisted  the  interests  of  Alexander  Hamilton 
and  the  patroon  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer. 

The  charter  was  granted,  and  on  the  plot  of  land  granted 
him  by  the  faithful  Indians  he  planted  his  institution.  In 
the  deed  of  conveyance  of  the  land  he  expressed  his  purposes 
and  breathed  the  liberal  and  generous  sentiments  of  his  pre- 
ceptor, —  so  far,  so  widely  different  from  the  sour  and  nar- 
row characteristics  which  have  too  often  appeared  in  New 
England  religious  life.  He  said  it  was  his  purpose  to  estab- 
lish an  academy  for  the  benefit  of  the  young  settlements  and 
of  the  confederated  tribes  of  Indians,  "  earnestly  wishing 
that  the  institution  may  grow  and  flourish,  that  the  advan- 
tages of  it  may  be  extensive  and  lasting,  and  that,  under  the 
smiles  of  the  God  of  wisdom  and  goodness,  it  may  prove  an 
eminent  means  of  diffusing  useful  knowledge,  enlarging  the 
bounds  of  human  happiness,  aiding  the  reign  of  virtue  and 
the  kingdom  of  the  blessed  Redeemer." 

And  for  more  than  a  century,  upon  the  hillside  from  which 
the  college  spire  looks  down  to  the  north  over  the  lands 
granted  by  the  Oneidas  to  James  Deane,  and  to  the  south 
over  the  lands  granted  by  the  Oneidas  for  the  work  of  Samson 
Occom,  standing  on  the  lands  granted  by  the  Oneidas  to 
Samuel  Kirkland,  across  the  two  ranges  of  mountains,  beyond 
the  Adirondack  wilderness,  the  spirit  of  Eleazar  Wheelock, 
the  spirit  that  founded  Dartmouth  and  has  made  Dartmouth 
what  it  is,  has  been  doing  the  same  work  that  the  spirit  of 
Wheelock  has  been  doing  here. 


20  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

The  specific  purpose  of  these  pious  men  has  apparently 
failed.  The  work  which  they  sought  to  do  for  the  Indian 
has  been  of  but  little  apparent  effect.  The  savage  tribes  they 
fondly  dreamed  they  could  civilize  have  passed  away.  But 
great  results,  nevertheless,  flowed  from  their  work.  The  five 
great  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  were  the  most  formidable  warriors 
and  the  most  highly  civilized  and  advanced  Indians  of  our 
continent.  They  occupied  a  strategic  point  in  the  continent 
of  North  America.  From  their  homes  flowed  to  the  south, 
the  Allegheny,  the  Susquehanna,  the  Delaware,  and  the 
Mohawk.  To  the  north  their  waters  ran  into  the  Great 
Lakes  and  into  the  Saint  Lawrence.  Five  thousand  warriors 
gathered  for  the  security  and  the  extension  of  their  dominion. 
They  controlled  the  Indian  tribes  south  to  the  Carolinas, 
west  to  the  Mississippi,  north  to  the  Lakes  and  the  Saint 
Lawrence,  and  east  farther  than  the  place  where  we  are 
now  standing.  Vital  to  the  success  of  the  American  forces 
in  the  Revolution  was  the  aid  or  the  neutrality  of  this 
formidable  band  of  warriors,  —  men  not  merely  savages,  but 
with  a  highly  developed  political  organization,  politicians 
and  statesmen;  and  in  the  great  struggles  which  ended  in 
American  independence  these  three  sons  of  Dartmouth  — 
Kirkland,  Deane,  and  Occom  —  held  the  Oneidas  firm  as  a 
rock  to  the  American  cause  and  prevented  the  powerful 
influence  of  that  confederacy  from  waging  war  upon  Wash- 
ington and  his  forces  in  the  rear. 

The  greatest  strategic  movement  of  the  Revolution  upon 
the  British  side  was  that  in  which  Burgoyne,  passing  down 
Champlain  and  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  St.  Leger,  passing 
from  Lake  Ontario  to  Oneida  Lake,  through  Wood  Creek, 
across  the  carry,  and  down  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  and 
Howe,  ascending  the  Hudson,  were  to  concentrate  at  Albany, 
cut  the  confederacy  in  twain,  and  defeat  its  armies  in  detail. 


SAMUEL  KIRKLAND  21 

It  was  the  work  of  these  sons  of  Dartmouth  in  the  valley  of 
the  Oriskany  that  held  the  Oneidas  friendly  to  the  American 
cause  and  enabled  Herkimer  to  turn  back  St.  Leger  from 
Fort  Stanwix  and  defeat  that  branch  of  the  strategy,  leaving 
Burgoyne  to  fall  helpless  at  Saratoga. 

Inscrutable  are  the  dispositions  of  Providence.  Man  pro- 
poses, but  God  disposes.  King  George,  giving  his  two  hun- 
dred pounds  to  promote  the  cause  of  Indian  education,  sets 
on  foot  an  influence  which  avails  greatly  to  cast  down  and 
destroy  his  dearest  hopes  of  overcoming  resistance  in  America. 
The  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  broad-minded  and  far-seeing,  giv- 
ing his  patronage  and  assistance  to  the  new  enterprise, 
serves  to  contribute  greatly  to  the  success  of  that  Washing- 
ton whose  blood  runs  in  his  own  veins  and  to  make  his  own 
ancestors  among  the  most  illustrious  upon  the  earth.  A 
controversy  about  the  control  of  a  little  college  in  New 
Hampshire  brings  the  genius  of  Webster  to  bear  upon  the 
mighty  mind  of  Marshall  and  produces  a  decision  in  the  Dart- 
mouth College  case  which  stands  as  a  bulwark  of  property 
and  the  rights  of  contract,  as  a  bulwark  to  the  national 
power  and  the  true  meaning  and  force  of  the  American 
Constitution  for  all  time.  The  pious  impulse  of  Wheelock, 
seeking  to  redress  the  Indian  wrongs  suffered  in  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  years  of  warfare,  and  to  make  some  recom- 
pense for  the  slaughters,  the  harryings,  and  the  burnings 
to  which  hard  necessity  compelled  our  fathers,  fails  of  its 
purpose  at  the  time,  but  sets  in  motion  the  springs  of  action 
that,  through  the  succeeding  century,  and  down  to  the 
present  day,  have  animated  young  Americans  in  carrying 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  a  great  continent  the 
spirit  of  his  example,  the  characteristics  which  he  sought  to 
impress  upon  the  Indian  tribes;  so  that  eighty  millions  of 
people,  men  with  consciences,  men  with  high  ideals,  men 


22  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  noble  purposes,  are  carrying  forward  in  our  day,  as  they 
will  in  the  days  to  come,  the  cause  of  justice,  of  liberty, 
of  righteousness  upon  earth. 

The  spirit  of  Eleazar  Wheelock  and  of  Samuel  Kirkland, 
failing  of  their  immediate  purpose,  is  the  spirit  of  the 
American  conscience,  the  spirit  of  American  progress,  the 
spirit  of  the  American  future! 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON 
COLLEGE 

HISTORICAL  ADDRESS  AT  THE  CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION,  AT 
CLINTON,  N.  Y.,  JUNE  17,  1912 

On  June  17,  1912,  Hamilton  College,  at  Clinton,  New  York,  celebrated  the  one 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  granting  of  its  charter.  The  college  grew  out  of  the 
Hamilton  Oneida  Academy,  founded  in  1793  by  Samuel  Kirkland,  missionary  to  the 
Oneida  tribe  of  the  Iroquois.  The  historical  address  at  the  centennial  of  the  college 
was  delivered  by  Elihu  Root.  Mr.  Root's  relations  to  Hamilton  College  form  one  of 
the  most  interesting  chapters  in  his  life.  He  was  born  in  a  house  on  the  college 
campus,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  one  in  which  his  father,  Professor  Oren  Root, 
lived  and  died,  and  which  has  since  been  Elihu  Root's  summer  home.  Professor 
Root  graduated  at  Hamilton  in  the  class  of  1833,  and  was  for  a  number  of  years  the 
tutor  in  mathematics;  in  1847  he  succeeded  Professor  Marcus  Catlin  as  professor  of 
mathematics,  holding  this  chair  until  his  death  in  1885,  —  a  service  of  forty-two 
years.  He  was  not  merely  a  great  teacher,  he  was  a  botanist,  a  mineralogist, 
and  a  lover  of  flowers,  plants,  and  trees,  and  his  lawns  and  garden  were  the  wonder 
and  delight  of  all  the  countryside.  Elihu  Root's  older  brother,  Oren  Root,  Jr.,  suc- 
ceeded his  father  in  the  chair  of  mathematics,  and  a  younger  brother  was  the  pro- 
fessor of  chemistry  at  Hamilton  College  for  a  brief  period  before  his  untimely  death. 
Elihu  Root  graduated  from  Hamilton  College  in  1864;  he  was  the  valedictorian 
of  his  class,  as  his  father  had  been  before  him.  He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  board 
of  trustees  of  the  college  in  1883,  and  is  the  chairman  of  the  board.  Thus  appear 
the  peculiarly  intimate  relations  of  Mr.  Root  to  his  Alma  Mater,  explaining  his  deep 
affection  for  the  institution  with  which  so  many  of  his  family  were  connected,  and  to 
whose  welfare  he  has  devoted  so  much  care  and  thought.  It  has  been  his  custom  for 
many  years  to  walk  across  the  street  to  the  college  chapel  on  the  opening  day  of  the 
fall  term,  and  make  a  brief  impromptu  address  to  the  assembled  students, — words 
of  encouragement,  of  suggestion,  and  of  inspiration  in  the  work  before  them.  The 
returning  students  have  come  to  anticipate  this  address  from  the  most  distinguished 
alumnus  of  the  college,  as  marking  one  of  the  red-letter  days  of  their  college  career. 
It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  none  of  these  talks  have  been  preserved,  for  they 
reveal  a  side  of  his  life  and  character  quite  different  from  any  which  appears  in  his 
more  formal  addresses. 

The  regard  which  the  alumni  of  Hamilton  College  have  come  to  feel  for  Mr.  Root 
was  indicated  at  the  Commencement  exercises  in  1915,  when  the  overshadowing 
event  at  the  alumni  meeting  was  the  presentation  to  the  college  of  a  bronze  bust  of 
Mr.  Root  by  a  large  group  of  the  alumni.  The  likeness  is  excellent  and  characteristic; 
the  artist  was  C.  I.  Pietro. 

23 


24  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Mr.  Root's  historical  address  at  Hamilton's  centennial,  which  follows,  should  be 
read  in  connection  with  this  brief  sketch  of  his  relations  to  the  college.  The  four 
addresses  here  printed  reveal  Mr.  Root's  close  study  of  the  early  history  of  the  educa- 
tional institutions  of  New  York  State  and  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  nation, 
so  intimately  related  with  that  history  through  Samuel  Kirkland  and  Eleazar 
Wheelock. 

MODERN  research  in  the  field  of  evolution  tends  to 
increase  greatly  the  apparent  importance  of  inherited 
as  distinguished  from  acquired  characteristics,  in  the  deter- 
mination of  individual  qualities.  It  appears  that  from 
generation  to  generation  the  transmission  of  microscopic 
determinants  fixes,  in  accordance  with  established  laws 
already  partly  discerned,  many  of  the  most  important  char- 
acteristics which  go  to  make  up  the  individual.  A  close 
analogy  may  be  found  in  the  spiritual  succession  by  which 
the  original  qualities  and  standards  of  an  old  institution  are 
transmitted  through  a  long  and  continually  changing  series 
of  individual  members  who  differ  widely  from  each  other, 
but  who,  coming  find,  and  going  leave,  the  institution  always 
essentially  the  same.  Great  endowments,  stately  buildings, 
public  favor  and  prosperity,  cannot  produce  or  take  the  place 
of  that  indefinable  and  mysterious  quality  which  has  been 
transmitted  from  a  remote  past,  which  has  persisted  through 
many  changing  years  and  many  passing  lives,  and  which 
gives  to  the  institution  a  personality  of  its  own,  a  continuance 
of  the  life  breathed  into  it  at  the  moment  of  its  birth.  Each 
new  human  element  that  enters  into  the  work  of  such  an 
institution  comes  under  the  domination  not  of  this  man  or 
that,  but  of  the  potent  spirit  which  gave  life  to  the  institution 
and  moulds  its  traditions,  its  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  and 
action,  its  purposes  and  its  aspirations. 

The  true  history  of  such  an  institution  must  be  the  story 
of  the  outward  working  of  this  informing  spirit,  and  it  is 
only  in  the  origin  that  we  can  find  understanding  of  all  that 
follows. 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  25 

The  granting  of  the  college  charter  to  Hamilton  College 
one  hundred  years  ago  was  but  an  incident  in  the  develop- 
ment of  an  institution  already  established.  The  application 
for  the  charter  is  described  in  the  Journal  of  the  Regents  of 
the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  at  its  meeting  of 
February  17,  1812,  as  — 

A  petition  from  the  Trustees  of  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy  praying  that 
the  said  Academy  may  be  invested  with  collegiate  powers  and  privileges. 

The  minutes  of  the  meeting  of  the  regents  on  March  10,  1812, 
contained  this  entry: 

The  committee  to  whom  was  referred  the  application  for  a  college  in 
Oneida  County  and  that  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy  be  erected  into  a 
college,  report  that,  in  their  opinion,  the  prayer  of  the  applicants  ought 
to  be  granted. 

The  charter,  which  was  reported  by  Chief  Justice  Kent  at 
the  meeting  of  the  regents  on  March  22,  1812,  begins  with 
the  recital : 

Whereas,  The' Trustees  of  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy,  in  conjunction 
with  many  of  the  citizens  of  the  Western  district  of  this  State,  have  by 
their  petition  made  known  to  us  that  they,  the  said  applicants,  were 
minded  to  found  a  college  by  engrafting  the  same  on  the  said  Academy 
at  or  near  the  site  of  said  Academy  in  the  town  of  Paris,  in  the  County 
of  Oneida,  and  have  signified  to  us  that  the  name  thereof  shall  be  Hamilton 
College. 

For  the  origin  of  our  college  we  must  go  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  academy  which  was  thus  "  invested  with 
collegiate  powers  and  privileges,"  which  was  "  erected  into  a 
college,"  upon  which  a  college  was  "  engrafted."  The 
beginning  of  the  academy  appears  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  for  January  29,  1793. 
There  were  present:  "  His  Excellency,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
University  (George  Clinton);  the  Vice-Chancellor  (John 
Rodgers);  Pierre  Van  Cortland,  Esq.,  Lieutenant-Governor 
of    this    State;     Lewis    Morris,    Benjamin    Moore,    Philip 


26  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Schuyler,  Gulian  Ver  Planck,  Mathew  Clarkson  "  —  great 
names  in  the  history  of  the  state. 
The  minute  reads: 

The  respective  applications  of  Samuel  Kirkland  and  seven  other  persons 
praying  that  Alexander  Hamilton  and  fifteen  other  persons  for  that  pur- 
pose nominated  may  be  incorporated  by  the  name  and  style  of  "  The 
Trustees  of  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy  "  at  Whites  Town,  in  the  County 
of  Herkimer;  and  of  Joseph  Yates  and  twenty- three  other  persons  pray- 
ing that  Abram  Yates,  Junior,  and  twenty-three  other  persons  nominated 
in  the  said  application  may  be  incorporated  by  the  style  of  "  The  Trustees 
of  the  Academy  of  the  Town  of  Schenectady,"  in  the  County  of  Albany, 
subject  nevertheless  to  be  changed  into  the  name  of  the  most  liberal 
benefactor;  were  severally  read  and  committed  to  the  Vice-Chancellor 
General  Clarkson  and  Mr.  Ver  Planck. 

The  committee  named  reported  favorably  at  the  same 
meeting,  whereupon  the  minute  proceeds: 

The  Board  resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  to  take  the 
above  report  into  consideration,  and  after  some  time  spent  thereon  the 
Chancellor  reassumed  the  chair,  and  General  Schuyler,  from  the  said 
committee,  reported  that  they  had  agreed  to  the  report  of  the  sub- 
committee.   Whereupon, 

Resolved,  That  the  Board  agree  to  the  said  report.  Ordered,  That  the 
Secretary  prepare  instruments  in  the  usual  form  for  incorporating  the 
said  Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  said  fifteen  other  persons  for  that 
purpose  named,  and  the  said  Abram  Yates  and  the  said  twenty-three 
other  persons  named  in  the  said  application,  and  that  the  Chancellor 
affix  the  seal  of  the  University  to  the  said  instruments. 

The  "  Academy  of  the  Town  of  Schenectady  "  subsequently 
became  Union  College.  Thus  Union  and  Hamilton  were 
created  at  the  same  instant  by  the  same  sovereign  act. 

The  Hamilton  Oneida  application  upon  which  this  action 
was  taken  was  dated  November  12, 1792.  The  charter  bears 
the  signature  of  George  Clinton  as  Chancellor.  It  was  one 
of  the  early  acts  of  the  regents  of  the  University  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  an  institution  then  recently  organized 
under  the  statute  of  1784,  revised  and  perfected  in  1787  upon 
the  report  of  a  committee  drafted  by  Alexander  Hamilton. 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  27 

The  first  Board  of  Trustees  appointed  by  the  charter  con- 
sisted of: 

Alexander  Hamilton,  John  Lansing,  Egbert  Benson,  Dan  Bradley,  Eli 
Bristol,  Erastus  Clark,  James  Dean,  Moses  Foot,  Thomas  R.  Gold,  Sewal 
Hopkins,  Michael  Myers,  Jonas  Piatt,  Jedediah  Sanger,  John  Sergeant, 
Timothy  Tuttle,  and  Samuel  Wells. 

For  the  true  origin  of  the  institution  we  must  go  still 
farther  back  to  the  school  of  Eleazar  Wheelock  at  Lebanon, 
Connecticut,  where  came  in  1761  as  a  student,  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  Samuel  Kirkland,  son  of  the  Reverend  Daniel 
Kirkland,  of  Norwich,  Connecticut.  The  school  was  estab- 
lished primarily  for  the  education  of  Indians,  and  out  of  it 
a  few  years  later  in  1769  grew  Dartmouth  College.  Here  the 
boy  became  imbued  with  the  spirit  and  began  to  acquire  the 
learning,  necessary  to  qualify  him  for  his  extraordinary  career 
of  usefulness  and  power  as  a  missionary  to  the  Iroquois. 

After  a  century  and  a  half  of  fighting  Indians  with  all  the 
hatred  and  revenge  which  follow  fire  and  the  sword,  outrages 
and  reprisals,  the  British  colonies  had  become  established  and 
strong  in  their  capacity  for  defense.  The  long  struggle 
against  France  and  her  Indian  allies  for  the  control  of  the 
continent  had  drawn  to  a  close  with  the  victories  of  Wolfe  at 
Quebec  and  Amherst  at  Montreal,  and  a  new  light  seemed  to 
break  upon  the  consciences  of  the  good  people  of  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies.  The  churches  that  listened  every 
Sunday  to  the  teachings  of  the  Apostles  awoke  to  a  sense 
of  concern  for  the  souls  of  the  simple  savages  whose  lands  they 
were  taking  away  and  whose  habits  contact  with  the  new  civi- 
lization was  corrupting.  Something  of  the  same  missionary 
spirit  arose  in  Protestant  Britain  and  New  England  that  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  church  had  inspired  the  devotion  and 
sacrifice  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries  to  the  Indians  of  the 
Northwest,  and  had  raised  the  names  of  La  Caron  and 
Breboeuf  and   Marquette   above   the  obscuring   mists   of 


28  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

doctrinal  dissension,  above  all  distinctions  of  sect  and  creed, 
as  illustrious  and  revered  examples  of  Christian  service. 
William  Legge,  second  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  became  trustee  of 
a  fund  collected  in  England  for  the  support  of  the  school  for 
Indians  at  Lebanon.  The  Scotch  Society  for  Propagating 
Christian  Knowledge  turned  their  attention  and  their  money 
towards  the  cultivation  of  the  newly-discovered  field,  sent 
out  missionaries  and  established  other  schools  for  the  spread 
of  the  gospel.  The  character  and  spirit  of  the  Lebanon 
school  are  exhibited  in  the  Memorial  sent  by  Mr.  Wheelock 
to  Sir  William  Johnson,  superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs 
in  North  America,  and  other  commissioners  assembled  at 
Fort  Stanwix  for  a  conference  with  the  Indians,  in  October, 
1768.    The  Memorial  says: 

The  Memorial  of  Eleazar  Wheelock  of  Lebanon  in  the  Colony  of  Con- 
necticut, Founder  and  Director  of  the  Indian  Charity  School  in  said 
Colony,  humbly  showeth: 

"  That  said  school  was  founded  with  a  single  view  to  promote  the 
knowledge  of  the  only  true  God,  and  our  common  salvation  especially 
among  the  savages  of  this  land;  thereby  to  deliver  them  from  their 
present  miseries,  make  them  good  members  of  society,  loyal  subjects 
to  our  rightful  Sovereign,  and  especially  cordial  subjects  to  the  King  of 
Zion.  And  the  plan  has  since  been  well  approved,  and  the  school  gener- 
ously endowed  by  the  liberalities  of  his  present  Majesty  King  George  the 
Third,  and  by  many  Noblemen  and  Gentlemen  in  Europe,  as  well  as  by 
many  charitably  disposed  people  in  America  —  and  much  labor  and  cost 
have  been  already  expended  to  fit  and  qualify  a  number  both  English  and 
Indians  for  Missionaries  and  School  Masters  among  their  several  tribes 
who  are  now  or  will  soon  be  ready  to  enter  upon  their  respective  services, 
if  suitable  doors  should  be  opened  for  their  improvement  therein.  Some 
attempts  have  also  been  already  made  among  the  Oneidas,  and  not  with- 
out some  encouraging  prospect  that  their  lives  and  manners  may  be  soon 
formed  to  rules  of  decency,  civility  and  religion." 

Into  this  work  the  young  Kirkland  entered  with  unsurpassed 
energy  and  enthusiasm.  The  first  reference  to  him  which  I 
find  is  in  a  letter  from  Sir  William  Johnson  to  Mr.  Wheelock, 
dated  November  17,  1761,  in  which  the  writer  says: 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  29 

Kirkland's  intention  of  learning  ye  Mohawk  language  I  much  approve 
of  as  after  acquiring  it  he  could,  when  qualified,  be  of  vast  service  to  them 
as  a  clergyman,  which  they  much  want  and  are  very  desirous  of  having. 

In  the  autumn  of  1762  Kirkland  entered  the  sophomore 
class  of  Princeton,  where  he  received  his  degree  in  course  at 
the  Commencement  of  1765.  So  eager,  however,  was  he  to 
enter  upon  his  adventurous  work  that  he  did  not  remain  for 
the  college  commencement,  but  before  the  close  of  the  year 
he  withdrew  and  engaged  in  an  expedition  to  the  country  of 
the  Senecas.  Mr.  Wheelock  said  of  this  expedition,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  on  May  16,  1765: 

A  young  English  gentleman,  Samuel  Kirkland,  I  sent  last  fall  to  winter 
with  the  numerous  and  savage  tribe  of  the  Senecas  in  order  to  learn  their 
language  and  fit  him  for  a  mission  among  them;  where  no  missionary  has 
hitherto  dared  to  venture.  This  bold  adventure  of  his,  which,  considered 
in  all  the  circumstances  of  it,  is  the  most  extraordinary  of  the  kind  I  have 
ever  known,  has  been  attended  with  abundant  evidence  of  a  divine 
blessing. 

On  April  29,  1765,  Mr.  Wheelock  sent  through  Sir  William 
Johnson  an  address  to  the  sachems  and  chiefs  of  the  Iroquois 
tribes,  in  which  he  said: 

I  thank  you  for  the  kindness  which  some  of  you  have  shown  to  my  dear 
Mr.  Kirkland,  whom  I  sent  into  your  country  last  fall.  His  heart  is  bent 
to  do  good  to  the  Indians.  He  denies  himself  all  the  pleasure  and  honors 
which  he  might  have  here  among  his  friends,  only  to  do  you  good.  I  hope 
you  will  continue  your  kindness  to  him,  and  treat  him  as  my  child.  I 
hope  God  will  make  him  an  instrument  of  great  good  to  the  Indians. 

"  This  gentleman,"  say  McClure  and  Parish,  speaking  of 
Kirkland,  in  their  memoirs  of  Wheelock, 

was,  in  various  respects,  peculiarly  qualified  for  the  arduous  task.  He 
possessed  uncommon  constitutional  strength  and  vivacity,  a  mind  fearless 
in  danger,  a  great  fund  of  benevolence,  and  a  heart  devoted  to  the  cause 
of  the  Redeemer,  and  zealous  for  the  conversion  of  the  heathen.  He 
traveled  among  those  barbarians  unattended,  boldly  persevered  in  the 
good  work,  and  endured  trials  and  encountered  dangers  which  would  have 
appalled  a  common  mind  with  terror  and  dismay.     Although  famine 


30  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

spread  its  horrors  around  him,  and  his  life  was  often  in  danger  from  some 
who  watched  an  opportunity  to  kill  him,  yet  he  continued  with  them 
more  than  eighteen  months,  taught  them  from  the  word  of  life,  and 
acquired  a  competent  knowledge  of  their  language. 

In  May,  1766,  Mr.  Kirkland  returned  from  the  country  of 
the  Senecas  and  was  ordained  at  Lebanon,  and  in  July  he 
returned  to  the  country  of  the  Iroquois  under  a  commission 
from  the  Society  in  Scotland.  The  commission  ran  in  these 
words: 

Be  it  known  to  all  people  by  these  presents,  that  the  Board  of  Corre- 
spondents, in  the  Colony  of  Connecticut,  New  England,  appointed  and 
commissioned  by  the  Honorable  Society  in  Scotland  for  Propagating 
Christian  Knowledge.  .  .  .  Do  authorize,  ordain,  and  appoint  the 
Reverend  Samuel  Kirkland  a  missionary  among  the  heathen  and  ignorant 
people  in  North  America  .  .  .  and  we  do  invest  the  said  Reverend 
Samuel  Kirkland  with  all  the  powers,  immunities,  and  privileges  belong- 
ing to  a  missionary,  employed  and  commissioned  by  the  Corresponding 
Commissioners  of  the  Honorable  Society  in  Scotland  for  propagating 
Christian  knowledge;  and  as  the  said  Reverend  Samuel  Kirkland  goes 
forth  under  the  protection  of  their  royal  charter,  it  is  desired  and  expected 
none  will  presume  to  molest  or  disquiet  him  in  the  prosecution  of  his  office, 
but  afford  him  all  needful  encouragement  and  assistance  therein. 

Signed  and  sealed  by  order  and  in  the  name  of  the  Board  of  Corre- 
spondents, at  Lebanon,  the  nineteenth  day  of  June,  a.d.  1766. 

Eleazab  Wheelock,  Secretary. 

At  this  time  he  took  up  his  residence  in  the  more  central 
position  of  the  Oneidas,  where  he  was  to  pass  his  life  and  do 
his  work  for  more  than  forty  years.  Abundant  evidence 
has  been  preserved  of  the  noble  and  unselfish  spirit  in  which 
he  worked,  of  his  tireless  energy,  the  fortitude  with  which  he 
endured  hardship  and  suffering,  the  courage  which  no 
poverty  or  discouragement  could  daunt,  the  swift  sympathy 
through  which  he  found  his  way  to  the  affections  of  his 
untutored  people,  and  the  commanding  influence  over  them 
which  he  acquired.  In  1769  a  clergyman  in  Scotland  sent 
him  thirty  pounds  through  a  New  York  correspondent,  say- 
ing that  he  had  "  from  good  authority  a  most  savory  account 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  31 

of  the  uncommon  labor  of  love  and  hardships  in  his  Master's 

service  of  the  Indian  Missionary,  Mr.  Samuel  Kirkland"; 

and  Kirkland  said  in  his  acknowledgment  of  this : 

This  will  be  not  only  the  first  thirty  pounds,  but  the  first  thirty  shillings, 
I  ever  had,  that  I  might  in  any  sense  call  my  own,  except  a  few  dollars 
given  me  last  spring  by  the  liberality  of  some  friends  in  Boston,  to  procure 
books.  I  have  never  had  any  salary  since  I  embarked  in  this  arduous  but 
glorious  cause,  nor  ever  asked  for  one.  I  have  the  testimony  of  my  con- 
science, with  four  years'  experience  (notwithstanding  the  reproach  and 
censure  I  am  obliged  to  receive  from  the  men  of  the  world),  that  I  was 
not  induced  to  enter  this  design  of  Christianizing  the  heathen  from 
pecuniary  motives  or  worldly  views.  Dr.  Wheelock  has  supplied  me 
from  time  to  time,  as  Providence  handed  in  to  him. 

And  at  about  the  same  time  the  Board  in  Scotland  resolved : 

The  Board,  having  taken  into  consideration  the  eminent  services  and 
painful  labors  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Samuel  Kirkland,  one  of  the  mission- 
aries employed  by  Dr.  Wheelock  among  the  Indians,  and  the  difficulties 
he  has  undergone  in  the  prosecution  of  that  employment,  are  of  opinion 
that  the  sum  of  one  hundred  pounds  sterling  be  allowed  him,  to  provide 
himself  with  necessaries,  before  he  engages  in  further  services. 

It  is  probable  that  during  all  this  period  Kirkland  had  in 
mind  as  a  useful  agency  for  civilizing  the  Indians  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  school,  not  only  because  of  the  impression 
derived  from  the  Lebanon  School  and  from  Mr.  Wheelock's 
example,  but  from  the  fact  that  during  their  intimate 
acquaintance  Mr.  Wheelock  himself  had  entertained  the 
idea  of  removing  his  own  school  to  the  country  of  the  Iro- 
quois. A  letter  is  preserved  from  Wheelock  to  General 
Amherst,  written  April  2,  1763,  in  which  he  proposes  that  a 
grant  of  land  be  made  — 

on  the  West  side  of  Susquehanna  River  or  in  some  other  place  more 
convenient,  in  the  heart  of  the  Indian  country,  in  favor  of  this  school 
.  .  .  and  that  the  school  be  an  Academy  for  all  parts  of  useful  learning; 
part  of  it  to  be  a  college  for  the  education  of  missionaries,  interpreters, 
school  masters,  etc.,  and  part  of  it  a  school  to  teach  reading,  writing,  etc. 

Indeed  it  appears  that  the  establishment  of  Dartmouth 
College  on  the  Mohawk  instead  of  at  Hanover  was  at  one 


32  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

time  in  contemplation,  for  at  the  Indian  Congress  at  Fort 
Stanwix,  in  October,  1768,  the  Reverend  Jacob  Johnson, 
one  of  the  missionaries  to  the  Indians,  came  in  behalf  of  Dr. 
Wheelock  to  ask  the  favor  of  Sir  William  Johnson  and  his 
associates  for  a  proposal  to  the  Indians,  which  ran  in  this 
way: 

Know  Ye  That  Whereas  The  Reverend  Dr.  Eleazar  Wheelock  of 
Lebanon  in  the  Colony  of  Connecticut  in  New  England,  Minister  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  about  to  set  up  a  college  or  Great  School  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Indians  which  generous  and  good  design  is  favored  by  your  Royal 
Father  the  King  of  Great  Britain  The  Earl  of  Dartmouth  together  with 
many  wise  as  well  as  great  and  good  men,  and  a  place  is  now  searching  out 
whereon  to  set  up  said  College  and  many  great  offers  made  in  lands  and 
monies  wherewith  to  endow  said  College  in  several  of  the  neighboring 
English  Governments  but  no  place  resolved  upon  as  yet  to  set  up  said 
College. 

These  are  therefore  to  ask  of  you  Fathers  and  Brethren  if  it  be  your 
minds  and  what  you  would  choose  to  appropriate  and  devote  a  certain 
tract  of  your  land  or  country  for  this  great  and  good  purpose  on  or  near 
the  Mohawk  River  or  wherever  you  in  your  wisdom  may  think  most 
convenient  of  such  extent  and  worth  as  may  be  sufficient  with  what 
monies  and  other  benefactions  and  charities  may  be  given  to  endow  said 
College  that  it  may  be  of  a  most  public  and  extensive  use  and  benefit  to 
the  several  nations  of  Indians. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  carried  Kirkland's  activ- 
ities into  a  wider  field,  introduced  a  new  element  into  his 
life,  and  gave  broader  scope  to  his  vision,  for  his  knowledge 
of  the  Indians  and  his  influence  over  them  enabled  him  to 
render  most  signal  service  in  preventing  Indian  hostilities, 
and  especially  in  maintaining  the  friendly  attitude  of  the 
Oneidas  towards  the  colonists  so  that  the  united  action  of 
the  League  of  the  Iroquois  in  the  British  interest  was  impos- 
sible. He  was  as  patriotic  as  he  was  pious.  He  served 
his  country  as  zealously  and  effectively  as  he  had  served  his 
religion.  He  became  the  agent  of  the  colonies  among  the 
Indians  of  all  the  Six  Nations,  and  for  years  journeyed  up 
and  down  through  the  country  attending  their  councils  and 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  33 

pleading  the  colonial  cause.  He  was  chaplain  to  the  garrison 
at  Fort  Schuyler  under  a  commission  from  the  Continental 
Congress.  He  was  brigade  chaplain  of  General  Sullivan 
in  the  campaign  of  1779.  He  became  a  trusted  adviser  of 
the  government  regarding  Indian  affairs.  He  was  thrown 
into  intimate  relations  of  friendship  and  confidence  with 
Washington  and  Hamilton  and  Schuyler  and  Pickering  and 
Knox.  After  the  defeat  of  St.  Clair,  when  the  Iroquois  were 
in  danger  of  making  common  cause  with  the  western  Indians 
in  a  bloody  war  against  the  new  government  of  the  United 
States,  it  was  Kirkland  who,  with  infinite  pains  and  difficulty, 
induced  a  great  party  of  the  chiefs  and  sachems  of  the  Six 
Nations  to  go  with  him  to  the  seat  of  government  at  Phila- 
delphia, where  a  good  understanding  was  reached  and  their 
part  in  the  war  prevented.  In  the  meantime  he  had  returned 
to  his  missionary  duties  among  the  Oneidas  and  had  prepared 
and  sent  to  Timothy  Pickering  and  to  the  Board  of  Com- 
missioners in  Boston,  "  a  plan  of  education  for  the  Indians, 
particularly  of  the  Five  Nations."  This  plan  contemplated,, 
in  addition  to  smaller  schools,  the  establishment  of  an 
academy  in  the  vicinity  of  Oneida  at  which  English  youth 
were  to  be  admitted,  and  a  certain  number  of  Indian  youth,, 
selected  from  the  different  nations  of  the  confederacy,  and 
to  be 

instructed  in  the  principles  of  human  nature,  in  the  history  of  civil  society, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  discern  the  difference  between  a  state  of  nature  and  a 
state  of  civilization,  and  know  what  it  is  that  makes  one  nation  differ 
from  another  in  wealth,  power,  and  happiness,  and  in  the  principles  of 
natural  religion,  the  moral  precepts,  and  the  more  plain  and  express 
doctrines  of  Christianity. 

Timothy  Pickering  was  one  of  the  little  group  of  men 
whom  Washington  trusted  most.  He  was  then  Postmaster- 
General,  was  soon  to  become  Secretary  of  War,  and  after- 
wards Secretary  of  State;  and  he  played  a  great  part  in  the 
Federal  administrations  which,  under  Washington  and  John 


34  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Adams,  set  in  motion  the  machinery  of  the  new  govern- 
ment under  the  Constitution.  A  long  document  from  him 
containing  comments  upon  Kirkland's  plan  of  education, 
approving  its  general  principles,  suggesting  alterations  and 
improvements,  gives  evidence  of  the  interest  he  felt  in  the 
subject.  In  1792  Kirkland  went  about  the  execution  of  that 
portion  of  the  plan  of  education  which  related  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  academy.  He  visited  New  York,  conferred 
with  the  governor  of  the  state  and  the  regents,  and  he 
visited  Philadelphia,  where  he  conferred  with  Washington, 
Pickering,  and  Hamilton.  Washington,  it  is  said,  expressed 
a  warm  interest  in  the  institution,  and  Hamilton  consented 
to  become  one  of  the  trustees  and  to  afford  all  the  aid  in  his 
power.  President  Fisher,  in  his  semi-centennial  address 
fifty  years  ago,  states  the  fact  that  from  Hamilton  Mr. 
Kirkland  obtained  the  gift  of  a  lot  of  land,  which  realized 
what  in  those  times  was  a  handsome  sum.  When  the  charter 
had  been  granted  Kirkland  proceeded  to  donate  a  site  to  the 
new  institution  on  the  hillside  overlooking  the  valleys  of 
the  Oriskany  and  the  Mohawk  —  a  part  of  the  tract  which 
four  years  before  had  been  conveyed  to  him  by  the  conjoint 
action  of  the  Indians  and  the  state  in  recognition  of  his 
services  to  both.  The  terms  of  the  conveyance  indicate  a 
liberal  spirit  and  an  appreciation  of  the  polite  side  of  life 
which  it  is  pleasant  to  find  surviving  after  so  long  experience 
amid  barbarism  and  hardship.  He  was  founding  an  institu- 
tion in  a  wilderness,  surrounded  by  savages.  The  nearest 
approach  to  civilization  was  to  be  found  in  the  rude  life  of 
the  frontiersmen.  Yet  he  specified  in  his  gift  of  land  that  a 
part  was  to  be  used  for  an  ornamental  garden.  The  pre- 
amble of  the  deed  has  often  been  quoted,  but  cannot  be 
quoted  too  often.    It  says: 

A  serious  consideration  of  the  importance  of  education  and  an  early 
improvement  and  cultivation  of  the  human  mind,  together  with  the 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  35 

situation  of  the  frontier  settlements  of  this  part  of  the  state,  though 
extensive  and  flourishing,  yet  destitute  of  any  well  regulated  seminary  of 
learning,  has  induced  and  determined  me  to  contribute  of  the  ability 
wherewith  my  Heavenly  Benefactor  hath  blessed  me,  towards  laying  the 
foundation  and  support  of  a  school  or  academy  in  the  town  of  Whitestown, 
and  county  of  Herkimer,  contiguous  to  the  Oneida  nation  of  Indians,  for 
the  mutual  benefit  of  the  young  and  flourishing  settlements  in  said  county, 
and  the  various  tribes  of  confederate  Indians;  earnestly  wishing  the 
institution  may  grow  and  flourish,  that  the  advantages  of  it  may  be 
extensive  and  lasting,  and  that,  under  the  smiles  of  the  God  of  wisdom 
and  goodness,  it  may  prove  an  eminent  means  of  diffusing  useful  knowl- 
edge, enlarging  the  bounds  of  human  happiness,  aiding  the  reign  of 
virtue,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  blessed  Redeemer. 

To  this  foundation  were  added  contributions  made  from 
their  slender  means  by  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  infant 
settlements  of  central  New  York.  In  the  following  year, 
1794,  the  academy  building  was  erected  and  soon  after  teach- 
ing was  commenced.  The  corner  stone  of  the  building  was 
laid  with  great  ceremony  by  the  Baron  Frederick  William 
von  Steuben,  Washington's  inspector-general,  the  drill 
master  of  the  Revolution,  the  old  staff  officer  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  whose  military  experience  and  loyal  constancy 
through  the  privations  of  Valley  Forge  turned  the  undis- 
ciplined colonial  levies  into  an  army  capable  of  Monmouth 
and  Yorktown.  Among  the  forests  that  were  familiar  with 
the  silent  passage  of  the  savage  Indian,  along  the  slopes  that 
looked  down  upon  the  bloody  battlefield  of  Oriskany,  the 
war-worn  soldier  was  accompanied  to  this  place  where  we 
now  stand  by  a  gay  and  joyous  cavalcade  in  which  were  two 
of  the  daughters  of  Mr.  Kirkland  and  their  escorts,  and  in 
which  the  Clinton  Light  Horse,  Captain  George  W.  Kirkland 
commanding,  was  the  guard  of  honor.  Cheerful  hope  and 
strong  faith  and  lofty  purpose  accompanied,  with  propitious 
omens,  the  first  physical  step  in  the  undertaking  we  now 
celebrate  and  promote,  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  and 
eighteen  years. 


36  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

It  is  plain  that  the  long  and  strenuous  labors  of  Kirkland 
in  the  revolutionary  struggle,  his  companionship  with  the 
great  men  who  were  freeing  and  founding  the  nation,  his 
agency  in  establishing  and  maintaining  due  political  relations 
between  the  still  powerful  Indian  tribes  and  the  new  United 
States,  had  changed  and  developed  the  view  of  the  young 
missionary  and  brought  a  new  element  into  the  scope  of  his 
purpose.  He  was  no  longer  content  to  convert  pagan  savages 
into  Christian  savages,  but  was  bent  upon  establishing  an 
agency  of  civilization  which  should  do  its  share  towards 
solving  the  race  question  of  his  time  and  make  peace  through 
knowledge  and  understanding.  To  the  savage  prejudice  and 
error  and  racial  hatred  against  which  he  and  his  great  com- 
panions and  leaders  had  been  struggling,  he  would  oppose, 
in  the  words  of  the  plan  of  education,  "  instruction  in  the 
principles  of  human  nature,  in  the  history  of  civil  society, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  discern  the  difference  between  a  state  of 
nature  and  a  state  of  civilization,  and  know  what  it  is  that 
makes  one  nation  differ  from  another  in  wealth,  power,  and 
happiness."  He  would  inculcate  not  the  doctrinal  theology 
of  any  school  or  creed,  but  "  principles  of  natural  religion, 
the  moral  precepts,  and  the  more  plain  and  express  doctrines 
of  Christianity."  It  was  this  public  service  of  statesmanship 
which  brought  to  his  project  the  approval  of  Washington  and 
the  cooperation  of  Hamilton  and  Pickering  and  Steuben.  So 
there  entered  into  the  birth  of  the  new  institution  both  the 
spirit  of  religion  in  its  broadest  sense  and  the  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism in  its  highest  development.  It  was  to  promote  Christian 
civilization  and  to  promote  instructed  and  wise  citizenship. 
It  was  not  merely  that  boys  might  learn  grammar  and  alge- 
bra to  help  them  to  get  on  in  life,  but  that  among  all  the 
crude  and  unorganized  elements  of  that  transition  period 
should  arise  an  influence  powerful  to  expand  men's  minds 
and  form  men's  characters  for  a  nobler  country  and  a  better 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  37 

world.  The  spirit  of  the  new  institution  was  born  of  struggle 
and  arduous  labor  and  sacrifice,  and  noble  scorn  of  ease  and 
luxury,  and  little  care  for  wealth  and  display,  and  thirst  for 
knowledge,  and  loyalty  to  truth,  and  love  for  man,  and  faith 
in  God.  When  we  now,  in  our  generation,  do  our  share 
towards  carrying  on  the  college  we  are  executing  the  lofty 
purposes  of  great  and  noble  men,  long  since  passed  away, 
and  entering  into  a  companionship  with  them. 

The  life  of  the  institution  has  been  a  life  of  struggle, 
happy,  perhaps,  for  the  preservation  of  its  virtues.  It  was 
several  years  before  the  funds  sufficed  to  finish  the  interior 
of  the  building  of  which  Steuben  laid  the  corner  stone;  but 
before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  had  become  a 
flourishing  institution.  It  was  visited  by  President  Timothy 
Dwight  in  his  "  Journey  to  Whitestown  "  in  1799.  He  says 
of  it: 

This  Seminary  is  already  of  considerable  importance;  and  contains 
fifty-two  students,  of  both  sexes,  under  the  care  of  two  instructors.  The 
scheme  of  education,  professedly  pursued  in  it,  includes  the  English,  Latin, 
and  Greek  languages,  and  most  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences.  An 
Academic  building  is  erected  for  it,  eighty-eight  feet  long,  and  forty-six 
feet  wide,  of  three  stories,  on  a  noble,  healthy  eminence,  commanding  a 
rich  and  extensive  prospect.    It  is,  however,  but  partially  finished. 

In  his  account  of  this  same  journey  President  Dwight 
describes  Utica  as  "  a  pretty  village  containing  fifty  houses,,, 
and  he  says,  "  in  1794  there  were  but  two,  and  in  1795  but 
six."  It  was  Dr.  Dwight's  intention  to  extend  his  journey 
to  the  western  parts  of  the  state,  and  he  proceeded  as  far  as 
a  point  which  he  describes  as  "  Laird's,  at  the  entrance  of  the 
Oneida  woods."  This  is  the  hamlet  on  the  present  state 
highway  about  two  miles  and  a  half  north  of  the  college. 
There  he  became  daunted  by  the  reported  difficulties  of 
penetrating  the  wilderness  any  farther  and  turned  back.  It 
seems  rather  a  pity  that  the  old  academy  building  which 
was  built  in  the  wilderness  with  so  much  pains  should  not 


5.  r  Si  *"m  i 


38  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

have  been  preserved  for  its  associations,  but  it  was  torn 
down  in  1830,  although  the  house  built  by  Mr.  Kirkland  at 
the  foot  of  the  hill  for  his  home,  in  1795,  and  long  known 
as  the  Harding  house,  still  remains.  In  those  early  days 
there  was  but  little  money  in  the  neighborhood  and  the 
academy  had  but  a  small  part  of  that.  The  report  to  the 
regents  for  the  year  1804  states  the  property  of  the  academy 
to  have  been: 

Academy  lot  and  house $3,500 

Other  real  estate 900 

Personal  estate 240 

Library  and  apparatus 462 

Annual  Income 

From  the  funds 48 

From  tuition 494 

Teachers'  salaries  per  annum  [there  were  two  of  them}  604 

Average  price  of  board  per  annum 65 

Price  of  tuition  per  annum 12 

And  upon  this  jasis  sixty-four  students  were  being  instructed 
in  — 

Reading  and  Writing. 

English  Grammar,  Cyphering,  etc. 

Mathematics,  Bookkeeping,  etc. 

Dead  Languages. 

Logic,  Rhetoric,  Composition,  etc. 

Moral  Philosophy,  etc. 

The  French  Language  and  Natural  Philosophy. 

When  we  consider  those  days  of  poverty  we  should  remem- 
ber that  the  men  who  contributed  the  funds  and  the  labor, 
who  cut  and  squared  the  timbers  and  split  the  shingles  and 
raised  the  frame  for  the  new  academy,  were  themselves  liv- 
ing in  log  houses  and  destitute  of  what  would  now  be  regarded 
as  almost  the  nece  ities  of  life;  that  the  money  which  paid 
the  sixty-five  dollars  per  annum  for  board  and  the  twelve 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  39 

dollars  per  annum  for  tuition  was  hardly  earned  on  partly 
cleared  farms  and  was  saved  by  self-denial  and  sacrifice. 
Life  was  hard  and  stern.  For  a  long  time  after  the  college 
charter  the  students  arose  in  the  morning  at  half  past  five 
o'clock,  summer  and  winter,  attended  prayers  in  the  chapel 
at  six,  and  recitations  until  seven,  by  the  light  of  tallow 
candles.  They  attended  church  and  chapel  and  recitation 
in  rooms  without  fires,  and  even  the  president  sometimes 
preached  in  overcoat  and  mittens. 

Great  progress  was  made  from  this  point  to  the  opulence 
which  justified  and  secured  the  college  charter  of  1812.  In 
1814,  the  regents  of  the  University  reported,  of  the  three 
colleges  which  then  existed  in  the  state: 

From  Columbia,  Union,  and  Hamilton  Colleges,  special  representations 
of  their  respective  conditions  have  been  made  to  the  Legislature,  by  which 
the  degree  of  increasing  prosperity  in  each  will  be  seen,  and  how  far  the 
very  great  benefits  they  are  calculated  to  afford  to  the  community,  recom- 
mend them  to  the  unremitted  support  of  Government. 

And  thereupon  the  legislature  of  the  state  enacted  a  law 
which  affords  an  interesting  illustration  tjf  the  changing 
standards  of  public  sentiment  and  public  policy.  It  was 
Chapter  120  of  the  Laws  of  1814,  entitled  "  An  act  institut- 
ing a  Lottery  for  the  promotion  of  Literature  and  for  other 
purposes,"  passed  April  13,  1814.    The  act  recites: 

Whereas  well  regulated  seminaries  of  learning  are  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  every  country,  and  tend  especially,  by  the  diffusion  of  science 
and  the  promotion  of  morals,  to  defend  and  perpetuate  the  liberties  of  a 
free  state;  Therefore, 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  people  of  the  State  of  New  York,  represented  in 
Senate  and  Assembly,  That  there*shall  be  raised  by  lottery,  in  successive 
classes,  a  sum  equal  in  amount  to  the  several  appropriations  made  by  this 
act,  together  with  the  simple  interest  accruing  thereon,  till  the  same  shall 
be  raised  and  paid  by  the  managers  appointed  to  superintend  the  same. 

The  act  then  proceeds  to  make  appropriations  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  dollars,  out  of  the  avails  of 
the  lottery  to  Union   College,   forty     aousand   dollars   to 


40  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Hamilton  College,  to  grant  the  land  known  as  the  Botanic 
Garden  in  New  York  to  Columbia  College,  and  to  authorize 
the  payment  of  four  thousand  dollars  to  discharge  the  debt 
of  the  Asbury  African  church  in  the  city  of  New  York.  In 
the  original  edition  of  the  Session  laws  there  is  a  note  under 
this  statute  which  says: 

No  bill  before  the  Legislature  excited  greater  interest  and  attention 
than  this  act.  Much  credit  is  due  to  the  unwearied  exertions  of  the  able 
and  eloquent  president  of  Union  College,  in  procuring  its  passage. 

And  there  is  an  appendix  to  the  volume  by  which  it  appears 
that  the  state,  under  an  act  of  June  19,  1812,  had  already 
given  to  Hamilton  College  the  sum  of  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
and  that  the  trustees  of  the  late  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy 
and  other  individuals  had  subscribed  fifty  thousand  dollars 
for  the  benefit  of  the  college. 

The  prosperity  of  the  institution  continued  until  in  1823  a 
boyish  prank  in  which  a  cannon  was  exploded  in  Old  South 
College  led  to  a  controversy  that  left  the  college  almost  with- 
out students;  and  for  several  years  it  seemed  on  the  verge  of 
extinction.  It  soon  recovered,  but  before  the  recovery  was 
complete  an  active  dispute  arose  upon  a  proposition  to  remove 
the  institution  to  Utica,  and  the  defeat  of  that  proposal  led 
to  the  resignation  of  President  Sereno  Dwight.  We  should  be 
grateful  that  the  proposal  was  defeated,  for  it  would  hardly 
have  been  the  same  institution  if  it  had  been  moved,  and 
now,  with  the  railroad  and  the  trolley  line  and  the  macadam 
roads  and  the  automobile,  the  college  is  practically  a  Utica 
institution.  It  is  nearer  to  Utica  now  than  New  Hartford  or 
Whitesboro  was  then.  The  great  citizens  whose  memory 
Utica  cherishes  as  a  part  of  her  civic  traditions  deemed  it  a 
part  of  their  duty  as  citizens  to  maintain  and  promote  the 
interests  of  the  institution  which  was  exercising  so  beneficent 
an  influence  throughout  the  region  of  which  Utica  is  the 
center.    The  first  president  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  41 

college  for  many  years  was  General  Joseph  Kirkland,  mayor 
of  Utica.  My  own  memory  recalls,  with  a  distinctness 
peculiar  to  the  vivid  impressions  of  early  youth,  the  appear- 
ance of  Horatio  Seymour  and  Joshua  Spencer  and  Hiram 
Denio  and  Edmund  A.  Wetmore  and  Erastus  Clark  and 
S.  Newton  Dexter  and  William  J.  Bacon  and  Thomas  W. 
Seward  and  Publius  V.  Rogers  as  they  appeared  upon  the 
commencement  stage  or  attended  meetings  of  the  trustees. 
They  deemed  this  to  be  their  college  —  the  college  of  their 
home,  and  injurious  distance  did  not  stop  the  way  of  their 
devotion  to  her  interests.  That  noble  and  beautiful  city  is 
nobler  and  more  beautiful  because  step  by  step  with  the  mate- 
rial growth  of  its  entire  life  have  gone  the  influences  of  the 
institution,  educating  the  sons  and  mingling  with  the  social 
life  of  the  city.  There  are  worthy  successors  now  to  Kirkland 
and  Seymour  and  Spencer  and  Denio,  and,  since  the  city  and 
the  college  are  drawn  closer  together  in  ease  of  access,  they 
should  draw  together  in  sympathy  and  mutual  benefit. 

Since  the  settlement  of  that  vital  controversy  the  college 
has  proceeded  with  little  adventure  upon  its  simple  and  pro- 
gressive course.  It  has  gradually  enlarged  its  Faculty  and  its 
facilities  for  instruction;  it  has  made  its  standards  higher 
and  its  work  more  thorough;  and  it  has  kept  pace  with  the 
requirements  of  the  time,  in  the  comfort  and  convenience 
and  beauty  of  the  many  commodious  and  stately  buildings, 
which,  especially  under  the  force  and  enthusiasm  of  President 
Stryker,  have  succeeded  the  rude  old  wooden  academy  on 
the  edge  of  the  Oneida  woods. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  although  the  Corporation  of 
Harvard  College  had  for  many  years  contributed  to  the 
support  of  Kirkland's  mission,  and  his  son,  John  Thornton 
Kirkland,  had  become  president  of  Harvard,  and  although 
Dartmouth  and  Hamilton  were  so  closely  associated  in  their 
source  and  origin,  and  although  Kirkland  was  a  graduate  of 


42  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Princeton,  nevertheless  the  force  of  the  old  Connecticut 
associations  was  so  strong  that  for  more  than  seventy  years 
every  principal  and  teacher  in  the  academy  and  every  presi- 
dent of  the  college,  with  one  exception,  was  a  graduate  of 
Yale.  The  one  exception  was  Dr.  Penney,  who  held  the 
office  of  president  for  a  very  brief  time,  from  1835  to  1839. 
The  last  of  the  series  of  Yale  graduates  was  the  eloquent 
Samuel  Ware  Fisher,  who  retired  from  the  office  in  1866. 
After  him  came  that  scholarly  and  delightful  gentleman, 
Samuel  Gilman  Brown,  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth;  after 
him,  a  graduate  of  Amherst,  the  gentle  and  pious  Henry 
Darling.  Then  we  came  to  our  own  in  the  selection  of  Mel- 
ancthon  Woolsey  Stryker,  of  the  class  of  1872.  He  needs 
no  monument  yet,  but,  when  he  does,  circumspice. 

No  mortal  now  can  inspire  me  with  half  the  reverence  and 
admiration  that  I  felt  for  the  teachers  of  Hamilton  fifty  years 
ago.  There  are  no  better  men  than  they.  There  never  can 
be.  But  I  am  bound  to  say  that  Hamilton  is  a  better  college 
than  it  was  then.  Her  work  is  better  done  and  her  students 
are  better  educated.  It  is  not  my  purpose  in  this  paper  to 
recount  the  details  of  the  college  life  and  growth  or  to  enu- 
merate and  estimate  the  men  who  have  been  a  part  of  that 
life.  For  the  men  of  the  first  half-century  that  service  was 
well  done  by  the  historical  discourse  of  fifty  years  ago,  and 
for  them  all  the  same  thing  is  done  under  the  admirable  prac- 
tice by  which  each  year  there  is  read  an  annalist  letter  from 
the  class  fifty  years  out,  a  practice  which  has  endured  for  half 
a  century  and  ought  never  to  be  abandoned. 

I  wish,  however,  to  say  something  about  the  college  that 
can  be  illustrated  by  reference  to  a  group  of  teachers,  who 
were  here  fifty  years  ago  —  my  own  father,  Oren  Root,  and 
his  son,  Oren  Root,  who,  in  succession,  filled  the  chair  of 
mathematics  in  the  college  for  fifty-eight  years;  Edward 
North,  professor  of  Greek  for  forty-eight  years;    Charles 


CENTENARY  OF  HAMILTON  COLLEGE  43 

Avery,  for  twenty-five  years  professor  of  chemistry;  Chris- 
tian Henry  Frederick  Peters,  the  astronomer  for  thirty-two 
years  in  the  Litchfield  Observatory;  and  Anson  Judd  Upson, 
for  twenty-one  years  professor  of  rhetoric.  Their  students 
doubtless  soon  forgot  the  most  of  what  they  learned  from 
book  and  lecture;  but  their  students  never  could  escape  the 
deep  and  lasting  impressions  upon  their  characters,  their 
tastes,  and  their  intellectual  methods.  These  professors  were 
poor  as  the  world  goes,  but  they  had  a  wealth  that  money 
cannot  create.  They  loved  their  subjects  and  were  happy 
in  their  work.  They  rejoiced  in  the  exercise  of  their  powers. 
They  were  content  with  simple  pleasures.  They  filled  the 
atmosphere  about  them  with  an  enthusiasm  for  learning  and 
literature.  They  sought  for  truth  as  one  who  strives  in  a 
game.  They  never  talked  or  thought  about  money  or  invest- 
ments or  profits.  They  took  little  heed  of  all  those  things 
for  which  men  are  striving  and  wearing  out  their  lives  in 
the  market  places  of  a  materialistic  civilization. 

For  a  boy  to  live  with  such  men,  to  be  close  to  them  during 
four  of  the  most  impressionable  years  of  youth,  to  observe 
and  become  accustomed  to  their  simple  and  sincere  lives, 
without  money,  made  happy  by  the  pleasures  of  the  intel- 
lect and  taste,  to  get  their  standards  and  become  impressed 
by  their  estimates  of  the  values  of  life,  and  to  learn  enough 
out  of  books  in  the  meantime  to  understand  it  all  —  that  is 
an  education  beyond  price. 

And  this  is  the  true  history  of  Hamilton.  Before  the 
coming  of  the  group  that  I  have  named,  their  predecessors 
running  back  to  the  wilderness  days  did  the  same.  Their 
successors  are  now  doing  the  same.  It  is  something  that  the 
great  university  cannot  do.  With  all  that  the  great  univer- 
sity gains,  it  continually  loses  something  with  its  growth, 
and  this  is  what  it  loses  —  the  personal  touch  and  the  devel- 
opment of  character.     It  is  something  that  only  the  small 


44  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

college  can  do,  and  only  the  small  college  with  the  right 
spirit.  Hamilton  does  it  because  the  spirit  of  the  found- 
ing in  the  wilderness  persists.  She  has  held  to  the  old  faith. 
She  has  never  sought  to  be  a  vocational  institution.  She 
does  not  teach  men  to  be  lawyers  or  doctors  or  clergymen 
or  bankers  or  farmers.  She  is  an  educational  institution. 
She  seeks  to  develop,  to  train,  to  form,  to  educate,  youths  to 
be  men  competent  to  fit  themselves  for  any  vocation.  She 
has  been  kept  true  by  her  traditions,  by  the  train  of  simple 
farmer  boys  who  have  come  plodding  over  the  hills  to  her 
examinations,  by  the  great  proportion  of  her  students,  who 
come  not  because  they  are  sent  or  because  it  is  the  correct 
thing  to  do,  but  because  they  are  eager  to  make  their  way 
in  the  world.  The  college  has  grown,  the  buildings  are  more 
numerous  and  expensive,  the  physical  appliances  are  more 
adequate,  the  endowment  is  more  ample.  The  pathetic  little 
schedule  of  property  of  a  century  ago  has  long  since  passed 
the  million  mark.  But  all  these  things  are  of  minor  impor- 
tance, for  what  would  it  profit  the  college  to  gain  them  and 
lose  its  own  soul  ?  The  richest  possessions  of  the  insti- 
tution are  the  multitude  of  lives,  past  and  present,  that 
would  never  have  been  educated  if  the  college  had  not  been 
here;  the  intelligences  that  would  not  have  been  enlarged 
by  learning  and  literature;  the  spirits  that  would  not  have 
been  quickened  but  for  her;  the  unrecorded  influences  for 
the  betterment  of  a  thousand  communities  to  which  her 
graduates  have  gone;  the  part  she  has  played  in  the  develop- 
ment of  our  country  along  lines  of  Christian  civilization. 
The  great  thing  to  be  said,  as  we  review  the  century,  is  that 
the  college  always  has  been,  in  its  essential  character,  the 
same  institution  which  drew  its  life,  in  the  wilderness,  from 
the  struggles  and  sacrifices  of  Kirkland  —  always  inspired 
by  the  same  spirit,  faithful  to  the  same  cause,  and  working 
out  the  same  beneficent  purpose. 


ADDRESS  AS  HONORARY  CHANCELLOR  OF 
UNION  UNIVERSITY 

SCHENECTADY,  NEW  YORK,  JUNE  10,  1914 

THE  first  creative  act  of  the  regents  of  the  University  of 
the  State  of  New  York  was  on  January  29,  1793,  in  the 
adoption  of  a  resolution  which  I  will  read  to  you: 

The  respective  applications  of  Samuel  Kirkland  and  seven  other  per- 
sons praying  that  Alexander  Hamilton  and  fifteen  other  persons  for  the 
purpose  nominated  may  be  incorporated  by  the  name  and  style  of  "  The 
Trustees  of  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy  "  at  Whites  Town,  in  the  County 
of  Herkimer;  and  of  Joseph  Yates  and  twenty -three  other  persons  pray- 
ing that  Abram  Yates,  Junior,  and  twenty -three  other  persons  nominated 
in  the  said  application  may  be  incorporated  by  the  style  of  "  The  Trustees 
of  the  Academy  of  the  Town  of  Schenectady,"  in  the  County  of  Albany, 
subject  nevertheless  to  be  changed  into  the  name  of  the  most  liberal  bene- 
factor; were  severally  read  and  committed  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  General 
Clarkson  and  Mr.  Ver  Planck. 

Whereupon  (after  a  favorable  report  from  the  committee) : 

Resolved,  That  the  Board  agree  to  the  said  report.  Ordered,  that  the 
Secretary  prepare  instruments  in  the  usual  form  for  incorporating  the  said 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  said  fifteen  other  persons  for  that  purpose 
named,  and  the  said  Abram  Yates  and  the  said  twenty-three  other  persons 
named  in  the  said  application,  and  that  the  Chancellor  affix  the  seal  of  the 
University  to  the  said  instruments. 

The  Academy  of  the  Town  of  Schenectady  created  by  this 
resolution  presently  became  Union  College,  and  then  became 
Union  University,  and  still,  like  the  chambered  nautilus, 
builds  her  more  stately  mansions. 

The  other  academy  born  of  the  same  resolution  developed 
a  little  later  into  your  neighbor,  Hamilton  College,  and  I 
come,  by  the  kind  and  partial  friendship  of  your  president 
and  trustees,  to  be  your  honorary  chancellor  for  this  present 
year,  not  as  a  son  of  Union  but  as  a  nephew  of  Union,  a  son 

45 


46  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  her  twin  sister,  bound  to  that  sister  by  birth  and  parent- 
age and  family  and  personal  intimacy  through  the  student 
body  and  the  faculty  and  the  board  of  trust,  in  almost  every 
way  by  which  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  identified  all  his 
life  long  with  an  institution.  I  was  brought  up  there  in  the 
great  tradition  of  President  Nott.1  He  was  still  living  and 
was  still  president  of  Union  until  after  my  graduation. 
Among  all  the  college  men  by  whom  my  boyhood  was  sur- 
rounded, his  strong  personality  loomed  large  in  thought  and 
discussion.  His  theories  and  methods  of  education  and  dis- 
cipline were  constant  subjects  of  reference  and  attack  and 
defense.  Even  the  heroes  of  the  Mexican  War  seemed  small 
in  comparison  with  the  eminent  man  who  for  more  than  sixty 
years  gave  distinction  to  Union,  as  some  tall  church  tower  in 
the  distance  affects  the  quality  of  a  landscape. 

Fifty  years  ago  and  for  two  full  college  generations,  in 
frequent  passing  up  and  down  the  valley,  I  never  failed  to 
leave  the  train  and  search  the  long  platform  of  the  shabby, 
little  Schenectady  station  for  a  boy  wearing  a  Sigma  Phi 
badge.  The  casual  inauguration  of  a  President  of  the  United 
States  was  a  trifling  incident  compared  with  the  annual 
fourth  of  March  convention  of  that  society  with  the  Alpha 
of  New  York  at  Schenectady.  The  visits  of  its  members  to 
and  fro  between  the  colleges  brought  intimate  acquaintance 
and  comradeship  and  affection  and  made  this  old  college  and 
the  quiet  town  a  part  of  the  memories  of  our  youth  always  to 
be  graced  with  a  certain  tender  and  romantic  sentiment. 

Union  has  always  had  special  respect  in  my  mind  as  the 
birthplace  of  college  Greek-letter  societies.  They  must  have 
been  a  rare  set  of  college  boys  who,  in  1826  and  '27  con- 

1  Eliphalet  Nott,  Presbyterian  clergyman.  Born  Ashford,  Conn.,  June  25,  1773. 
Elected  president  of  Union  College,  now  Union  University,  in  1804,  and  served  until 
his  death,  January  29,  1866.  By  his  invention  of  stoves  and  other  warming  appa- 
ratus, he  acquired  a  fortune,  much  of  which  he  devoted  to  the  assistance  of  Union 
College.  —  The  Americana  Cyclopedia. 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  47 

ceived  and  launched  the  Kappa  Alpha,  Delta  Phi,  and 
Sigma  Phi  societies.  They  must  have  laid  hold  of  some  of 
the  essential  and  permanent  qualities  of  generous  youth 
for  the  motif  of  their  new  associations,  else  how  could  it  be 
that  all  America  followed  their  example  and  that  almost 
a  hundred  years  later  the  oldest  men  retain  affectionate 
loyalty  for  the  boyish  ideals  they  inspired.  They  had  made 
Union  our  Mecca,  to  which  we  came  with  devotion.  Many 
of  the  founders  were  still  living.  To  this  day  my  voice  grows 
solemn  as  I  recall  the  reverence  in  which  they  were  held. 
They  were  our  totem  bearers;  we  were  their  clans.  Schenec- 
tady was  ours  because  it  was  theirs.  It  was  to  us  the  place  of 
the  miracle.  And  what  wonderful,  wonderful  boys  were  their 
successors  in  all  these  societies!  How  fearless  and  joyous  and 
debonaire  their  unquenched  youth.  How  perfect  their  grace 
and  charm.  With  what  resplendent  attire  they  pervaded  the 
town  and  shone  gloriously  against  the  dull  brown  background 
of  quaint,  sleepy,  old  Schenectady,  in  the  days  before  the 
burial  of  the  dead  languages,  and  the  blossoming  of  the 
General  Electric. 

We  now  live  in  a  different  world,  with  different  surround- 
ings, different  curriculum,  different  necessities,  different  con- 
ceptions of  education  and  its  purpose.  A  great  army  of  new 
sciences  crowds  Greek  and  Latin  and  Pure  Mathematics 
into  the  corner.  We  have  travelled  far  from  Franklin  and  his 
kite  to  Edison  and  Marconi;  from  the  comforting  dismissal 
of  light,  heat,  and  electricity,  as  "  the  three  imponderable 
agents  known  only  by  their  effects  ",  to  the  amazing  insight 
and  refinement  of  investigation  which  proceeds  from  mole- 
cule to  atom  and  from  atom  to  corpuscle,  to  ion  and  electron 
and  to  the  bewildering  identification  of  matter  and  eternal 
motion.  From  vast  unknown  and  unsuspected  fields  of 
research  and  thought,  myriads  of  discoveries,  of  facts,  of  gen- 
eralizations, overwhelm  the  seeker  for  knowledge  with  a 


48  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

sense  of  the  impossibility  of  his  task.  Rigid  selection  of  the 
narrow  limits  and  the  few  subjects  which,  within  the  possi- 
bilities of  a  college  course,  will  best  subserve  the  purposes  of 
education  has  become  necessary.  Standards  of  conduct  have 
changed.  In  Doctor  Nott's  time  they  used  to  fill  the  soft 
wood-work  in  your  buildings  with  a  multitude  of  brads 
which,  concealed  under  the  paint,  discouraged  the  carving 
of  door  posts  into  totem  poles,  and  the  devotion  of  benches 
to  the  traditional  recreation  of  the  whittling  Yankee.  I 
believe  that  the  students  of  Union  have  outgrown  the 
occasion  for  that  custom.  I  suppose  the  most  famous  ser- 
mon ever  preached  in  the  United  States  was  Doctor  Nott's 
sermon  against  duelling  immediately  after  the  fatal  meeting 
between  Hamilton  and  Burr.  It  was  a  courageous  assault 
upon  a  living  abuse.  I  read  it  over  a  few  years  ago  and  it 
seemed  rhetorical  and  tame.  That  dragon  was  dead.  It  no 
longer  remains  to  be  slain,  and  many  other  dragons  have 
disappeared. 

On  April  13,  1814,  the  legislature  of  New  York  enacted  a 
law  which  runs  as  follows: 

Whereas,  well  regulated  seminaries  of  learning  are  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  every  country,  and  tend  especially,  by  the  diffusion  of  science  and 
the  promotion  of  morals,  to  defend  and  perpetuate  the  liberties  of  a  free 
state;  Therefore, 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  people  of  the  State  of  New  York,  represented  in 
Senate  and  Assembly,  That  there  shall  be  raised  by  lottery,  in  successive 
classes,  a  sum  equal  in  amount  to  the  several  appropriations  made  by  this 
act,  together  with  the  simple  interest  accruing  thereon,  till  the  same  shall 
be  raised  and  paid  by  the  managers  appointed  to  superintend  the  same. 

Among  the  appropriations  made  by  the  act  was  one  of 
$170,000,  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  lottery  to  Union  College, 
and  a  foot-note  under  this  statute  in  the  original  edition  of 
the  laws,  says: 

No  bill  before  the  Legislature  excited  greater  interest  and  attention 
than  this  act.  Much  credit  is  due  to  the  unwearied  exertions  of  the  able 
and  eloquent  president  of  Union  College,  in  procuring  its  passage. 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  49 

Imagine  President  Richmond  today  proposing  to  increase 
the  funds  of  Union  by  a  lottery  for  the  diffusion  of  science 
and  the  promotion  of  morals,  to  defend  and  perpetuate  the 
liberties  of  a  free  state !     So  widely  has  public  policy  changed. 

The  students  of  Union  to  whom  I  am  now  speaking,  com- 
pared with  the  boys  whom  I  knew  here  in  the  early  sixties, 
are  being  educated  for  different  conditions  and  a  different 
kind  of  life;  for  new  responsibilities,  new  duties,  new  oppor- 
tunities; and  as  an  honorary  chancellor  must  always  be 
either  didactic  or  cynical,  I  am  moved  to  make  a  few  remarks 
about  what  you  are  going  to  do  when  you  leave  these  side 
lines  and  take  part  in  public  affairs.  You  are  not  to  fit  your- 
selves into  a  scheme  or  order  settled  long  beforehand.  You 
are  to  make  your  own  parts  in  a  period  of  unrest,  of  changes, 
some  good,  some  bad,  but  incessant  and  universal;  of  old 
postulates  denied,  of  old  authorities  repudiated,  and  of  new 
conceptions  in  morals,  in  government,  and  in  the  relations  of 
men  in  civil  society.  The  old  American  individualism  with 
its  corollaries  of  individual  freedom,  independence  of  char- 
acter, strict  limitation  upon  the  powers  of  government, 
development  of  the  state  through  individual  initiative  and 
enterprise  is  hard  pressed  by  the  exigencies  of  industrial  and 
social  organization.  Interdependence  of  life  is  taking  the 
place  of  self-dependence.  The  individual  unit  in  the  great 
factory  is  powerless  as  against  his  employer.  The  individual 
unit  in  the  labor  union  is  powerless  as  against  his  associates. 
Organization  seems  necessary  for  protection  and  there  is  a 
general  and  a  growing  tendency  to  appeal  to  that  greatest  of 
organizations,  the  Government  to  which  we  all  belong,  to 
supply  the  place  of  self -protection.  Yet  increase  of  govern- 
ment protection  involves  increase  of  reliance  upon  govern- 
ment instead  of  self-reliance,  and  it  involves  also  increase 
of  government  interference  with  the  conduct  of  life  and 
the  habit  of  submission  to  that  interference  instead  of  the 


50  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

assertion  of  individual  independence.  We  will  all  or  most  of 
us  agree  that  if  this  be  carried  too  far,  the  individual  citizens 
of  any  country  will  lose  the  qualities  of  character  necessary 
to  free  self-government. 

Democracy  here,  as  in  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  is 
tending  to  assert  its  right  to  the  direct  conduct  of  its  own 
affairs.  It  is  tending  to  cut  loose  from  its  old  reliance  upon 
representatives  chosen  to  make  a  special  study  of  law  and 
administration,  of  public  needs  and  practicable  remedies,  to 
consider  and  discuss  and  amend  and  improve  projects  of  law. 
And  it  tends  to  make  laws,  however  complicated,  itself  by 
direct  action  at  the  polls;  to  turn  out  public  officers  on  what- 
ever particular  occasion  may  present  itself,  to  recall  judges 
for  unpopular  decisions,  and  to  recall  or  reverse  the  decisions 
themselves.  More  and  more  democracy  is  tending  to  instruct 
its  representatives  specifically,  and  more  and  more  it  takes 
upon  itself  the  determination  of  the  issues  of  peace  and 
war  between  nations.  Now  democracy,  with  all  its  virtues, 
has  some  weaknesses.  It  is  very  common  for  orators  seeking 
popularity  to  tell  the  people  how  wise  and  infallible  they  are, 
but  they  who  do  this  are  no  true  friends  of  the  people  to 
whom  they  speak.  Imperfect  and  erring  individuals  do  not 
attain  absolute  perfection  by  combining  with  each  other. 
Men  in  the  mass  need  to  guard  against  their  own  defects 
and  to  be  warned  of  them  just  as  much  as  individual  men. 
A  large  part  of  the  faults  in  government  against  which  the 
American  people  for  the  past  few  years  have  been  scolding 
and  devising  remedies  arise  from  the  failure  of  the  American 
people  themselves  to  perform  their  own  political  duties  prop- 
erly. I  will  mention  some  of  the  tendencies  against  which 
democracy  needs  to  guard  itself: 

Popular  action  is  too  often  guided  by  feeling  rather  than  by 
judgment.  If  one  seeks  a  lawyer  to  try  a  cause,  or  a  physi- 
cian to  cure  illness,  or  an  engineer  to  build  a  bridge,  he  does 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  51 

not  make  the  selection  with  a  view  to  rewarding  some  one 
whom  he  likes,  but  he  seeks  some  one  who  can  best  do  the 
thing  that  is  to  be  done  —  a  competent,  trustworthy,  skillful 
lawyer  or  physician  or  engineer.  Yet  when  some  one  is  to  be 
selected  to  carry  on  government,  the  chances  are  that  the 
same  men  will  select  somebody  because  they  like  him; 
because  he  is  a  good  fellow  and  they  would  like  to  give  him 
the  salary  or  the  honor  of  office.  Popularity  and  not  compe- 
tency becomes  the  test.  It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  see 
constituencies  who  are  in  the  main  honest  and  hardworking, 
return  to  office  year  after  year  absolutely  corrupt  and  disso- 
lute men  because  they  are  personally  popular,  and  their 
constituencies  will  not  listen  to  any  evidence  against  them. 
In  organizations  where  many  men  are  cooperating  to  carry 
on  business  in  the  interests  of  great  numbers  of  stock  and 
bond  holders  the  rule  of  fitness  for  the  work  to  be  done  as 
against  the  rule  of  popularity  is  applied  without  question, 
and  the  greater  the  organization,  up  to  the  greatest  trans- 
portation and  industrial  organizations,  the  more  rigid  is 
the  rule.  But  when  we  come  to  political  organization  for 
the  purpose  of  carrying  on  the  business  of  government  in  the 
interests  of  all  the  people  of  a  community  or  a  state  or  a 
country,  the  tendency  is  to  reverse  the  rule.  Yet  the  busi- 
ness of  carrying  on  government  is  exceedingly  complicated 
and  difficult.  It  requires  the  highest  qualities  of  intelligence 
and  character  if  it  is  to  be  well  done,  and,  with  the  con- 
tinuous enlargement  of  the  functions  of  government  to  which 
I  have  referred,  the  requirements  of  that  great  business  grow 
every  year  more  and  more  exacting.  Moreover,  the  good  or 
bad,  effective  or  ineffective,  conduct  of  that  business  is  coming 
to  play  a  continually  greater  part  in  the  lives  and  fortunes  and 
opportunities  for  success  and  happiness  of  all  citizens. 

There  is  too  general  a  tendency  to  take  professions  of 
friendship  for  the  people  at  their  face  value  instead  of  apply- 


52  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

ing  to  them  the  tests  which  men  apply  in  their  private  lives. 
Instead  of  asking  how  far  the  self-interest  of  a  professed  friend 
of  the  people,  a  desire  on  his  part  to  make  himself  popular  or 
to  be  elected  to  office,  may  be  the  real  inspiration  of  his  pro- 
fessions; instead  of  asking  how  far  his  life  and  established 
character  or  the  things  that  he  has  done  furnish  evidence  of 
his  sincerity,  the  tendency  is  to  assume  that  a  man  has  the 
public  interest  at  heart  because  he  says  he  has.  There 
seems  to  be  a  certain  quality  of  hypnotic  suggestion  about 
such  declarations  as  there  is  about  profuse  advertising,  which, 
of  course,  is  never  accompanied  by  proof  but  which  sells 
goods  and  brings  success.  This  tendency  is  the  stock  in 
trade  of  the  demagogue,  and  all  friends  of  free  self-govern- 
ment have  long  recognized  the  great  importance  that  democ- 
racies shall  outgrow  the  tendency.  I  believe  that  there  is 
and  long  has  been  steady  progress  towards  this  desirable  end. 
But  we  are  still  far  from  having  attained  the  end. 

There  is  a  widespread  tendency  to  regard  questions  of 
political  conduct,  both  in  the  making  and  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  laws,  with  exclusive  reference  to  the  particular 
transaction  of  the  moment  taken  by  itself  and  without  ref- 
erence to  the  principles  or  rules  of  political  conduct  which 
ought  to  govern  such  action,  and  without  reference  to  the 
effect  which  the  action  considered  may  have  upon  the  main- 
tenance and  general  observance  of  such  rules.  To  do  what 
seems  good  or  desirable  at  the  time  in  a  particular  case 
without  reference  to  a  rule  of  conduct  is  what  the  benevolent 
despot  does.  It  is  what  a  great  many  people  are  doing  in 
Mexico  at  the  present  time.  It  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the 
idea  upon  which  our  government  was  built  up  to  be  a  govern- 
ment of  laws  and  not  a  government  of  men.  Any  political 
system  based  upon  it  rests  upon  shifting  sands. 

The  American  people,  in  their  national  and  state  constitu- 
tions, have  established  certain  principles,  certain  rules  of 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  53 

right  conduct  according  to  which  we  have  all  agreed  govern- 
ment ought  to  be  conducted  —  principles  and  rules  for  the 
protection  of  individual  life,  and  liberty,  without  which  life 
is  not  worth  having,  and  property,  without  which  civilization 
has  never  yet  been  maintained.  We  call  these  the  limita- 
tions of  the  Constitution,  and,  taken  together,  we  speak  of 
them  as  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

Now  no  political  or  governmental  action  by  any  congress 
or  legislature  or  president  or  governor  in  any  particular  case 
can  be  so  important  as  the  preservation  of  these  great  rules 
of  conduct.  It  may  be  that  from  time  to  time  we  shall  dis- 
cover that  some  rule  ought  to  be  modified.  It  may  be  wrong 
or  it  may  require  change  to  meet  changed  conditions  or  it 
may  be  too  broadly  stated.  If  so,  the  change  should  be 
made.  But  that  the  system  of  rules  as  they  exist  at  the  time 
being  should  be  maintained  and  observed  is  the  most  impor- 
tant thing  in  our  self-government.  The  relation  of  these 
rules  to  our  political  conduct  is  the  same  as  the  relation  of  the 
principles  which  morality  and  religion  require  to  be  the  guide 
of  individual  conduct  rather  than  mere  impulses  or  passion. 

We  practically  all  agree  to  this,  yet  we  are  all  the  time  for- 
getting the  importance  of  keeping  rules  of  conduct  in  mind, 
and  we  are  apt  to  be  very  impatient  if  the  particular  thing 
which  we  wish  to  do  at  a  particular  time  proves  to  be  con- 
trary to  a  provision  of  the  Constitution.  And  we  are  often 
irritated  with  the  courts  who  perform  the  disagreeable  duty 
of  reminding  us  that  the  action  we  desire  is  contrary  to  the 
rules  of  conduct  we  have  resolved  to  maintain. 

Instead  of  taking  an  active  interest  in  the  general  rules  of 
conduct  which  are  to  control  our  political  action,  there  appears 
to  be  great  indifference  to  them.  There  were  in  round  num- 
bers, 1,638,000  votes  cast  for  presidential  electors  in  the  state 
of  New  York  in  1908.  In  1914  there  were  but  306,000 
votes  cast  in  the  state  upon  the  question  whether  we  shall 


54  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

have  a  convention  to  revise  and  amend  the  constitution  of 
the  state;  that  is  to  say,  disregarding  the  increase  of  voting 
population  since  1908,  there  were  this  year  in  the  state  over 
1,322,000  voters  who  did  not  care  enough  about  the  consti- 
tution of  the  state  to  go  to  the  polls  and  say  whether  they 
want  to  have  it  changed  or  left  as  it  is.  The  same  indiffer- 
ence appears  in  the  votes  upon  amendments  to  the  consti- 
tution of  this  state.  During  a  series  of  years  the  aggregate 
votes  for  and  against  various  amendments  proposed  to  the 
people  have  been  in  round  numbers  as  follows: 

(1899)  469,000,  421,000,  411,000,  460,000 

(1901)  664,000 

(1905)  492,000,  442,000,  431,000,  472,000,  500,000,  420,000,  413,000 

(1907)  490,000,  433,000 

(1909)  477,000,  527,000,  495,000,  498,000 

(1910)  664,000,  635,000 

(1911)  676,000,  620,000,  608,000,  611,000,  629,000,  607,000,  597,000, 
627,000. 

That  is  to  say,  less  than  a  third  of  the  voters  of  the  state 
took  interest  enough  to  express  themselves  one  way  or  the 
other  regarding  constitutional  provisions. 

This  is  very  natural.  People  generally  are  interested  in 
concrete  things  and  personal  matters,  and  the  constitution 
is  dull,  dry,  and  uninteresting.  It  is  plain,  however,  that  if  a 
people  are  going  to  govern  themselves,  if  they  are  growing  in 
power  and  capacity  for  self-government,  there  ought  to  be  a 
progressive  increase  in  the  interest  which  they  take  in  these 
dry  and  dull  foundations  of  their  political  institutions. 

Ordinarily  the  people  of  the  United  States  take  very  little 
interest  in  their  foreign  affairs.  It  is  only  when  a  controversy 
arises  which  touches  some  subject  of  domestic  concern  that 
they  really  wake  up  to  an  understanding  that  there  is  some- 
thing real  about  foreign  relations,  something  besides  show 
and  form  and  ceremony.  When  they  do  wake  up,  the  first 
reaction  is  on  the  aggressive  side  and  uncompromisingly  in 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  55 

favor  of  the  United  States  always  having  her  own  way  to  the 
fullest  extent  in  all  her  dealings  with  other  nations.  So  long 
as  there  is  no  concrete  question  directly  affecting  any  Ameri- 
can interest  we  are  all  in  favor  of  peace  and  justice,  arbitra- 
tion and  kindly  consideration,  but  as  soon  as  a  concrete 
question  arises,  any  suggestion  that  any  other  country  has 
rights  or  that  America  has  obligations  which  may  require 
a  modification  of  the  most  extreme  possible  view  of  American 
demands  is  denounced  as  an  unworthy  surrender.  Formerly 
monarchs  plunged  their  countries  into  war  for  ambition  or 
personal  passion  or  dynastic  aggrandizement,  and  they  made 
the  great  mass  of  their  people  food  for  gunpowder.  Today  it 
is  the  general  rule  that  governments  are  attempting  to  keep 
the  peace  with  all  the  world  and  the  democracies  behind 
them  are  continually  making  it  difficult  for  peace  to  be  kept. 
Long  ago  De  Tocqueville  said : 

Foreign  politics  demand  scarcely  any  of  those  qualities  which  a  democ- 
racy possesses;  and  they  require,  on  the  contrary,  the  perfect  use  of 
almost  all  those  faculties  in  which  it  is  deficient.  Democracy  is  favorable 
to  the  increase  of  the  internal  resources  of  a  state;  it  tends  to  diffuse  a 
moderate  independence;  it  promotes  the  growth  of  public  spirit,  and 
fortifies  the  respect  which  is  entertained  for  law  in  all  classes  of  society: 
and  these  are  advantages  which  only  exercise  an  indirect  influence  over 
the  relations  which  one  people  bears  to  another.  But  a  democracy  is 
unable  to  regulate  the  details  of  an  important  undertaking,  to  persevere  in 
a  design,  and  to  work  out  its  execution  in  the  presence  of  serious  obstacles. 
It  cannot  combine  its  measures  with  secrecy,  and  will  not  await  their 
consequences  with  patience.  These  are  qualities  which  more  especially 
belong  to  an  individual  or  to  an  aristocracy;  and  they  are  precisely  the 
means  by  which  an  individual  people  attains  a  predominant  position. 

These  observations  are  not  to  be  accepted  as  asserting  the 
ultimate  incapacity  of  democracy  in  international  affairs, 
but  as  pointing  to  imperfections  incident  to  the  particular 
stage  of  development  through  which  democracy  has  been 
passing.  The  development  must  go  on  and  a  higher  degree 
of  capacity  for  just  and  adequate  treatment  of  such  affairs 


56  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

must  be  reached,  or  the  advent  of  democracy  to  immediate 
control  over  national  foreign  affairs  will  result  in  a  retrograde 
movement  in  the  relations  between  nations.  For  those  rela- 
tions so  essential  to  the  progress  of  civilization  rest  upon 
national  willingness  to  be  considerate  and  just. 

All  of  these  tendencies  against  which  democracy  needs  to 
guard  itself  and  away  from  which  it  ought  to  be  growing 
through  its  process  of  development,  and  many  other  similar 
tendencies,  may  be  covered  by  a  single  formula. 

Democracy  always  asserts  its  rights  before  realizing  its 
duties. 

Yet  the  two  are  indissolubly  united.  Each  is  the  necessary 
corollary  of  the  other.  There  can  be  no  right  which  does  not 
impose  a  duty  not  merely  upon  others  but  upon  the  very- 
person  who  possesses  the  right.  And  there  can  be  no  duty 
which  does  not  vest  a  right  in  the  very  person  who  owes  the 
duty.  No  exercise  of  political  function  by  any  member  of  a 
democracy  can  rightly  be  a  mere  matter  of  personal  whim 
or  pleasure.  The  exercise  of  the  right  to  vote  for  a  public 
officer  carries  the  duty  to  help  select  an  officer  who  will 
exercise  the  powers  of  his  office  without  oppression  and  with- 
out corruption.  The  exercise  of  the  right  to  legislate  carries 
the  duty  to  make  laws  which  will  not  violate  the  principles 
of  justice  in  their  operation  upon  any  one  in  the  community. 
The  right  to  say  what  course  one's  government  shall  follow 
in  an  international  affair  carries  the  duty  to  help  maintain 
the  peace  of  the  world  and  justice  among  nations.  These 
duties  are  owed  by  each  individual  active  agent  in  a  democ- 
racy and  by  all  of  them  put  together,  towards  each  other 
individual  and  all  other  individuals.  Our  democracy  has 
hardly  yet  begun  to  realize  that  with  every  new  assertion  of 
its  power  it  assumes  an  added  burden  of  obligation. 

In  the  very  earliest  attempts  to  establish  this  institution 
in  the  year  1780  a  college  charter  was  drafted  under  the 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  57 

authority  of  Governor  George  Clinton  which  recited  the 
reason  for  a  college  here  in  these  words: 

Whereas,  a  great  number  of  the  respectable  inhabitants  of  the  counties 
of  Albany,  Tryon,  and  Charlotte,  taking  into  consideration  the  great  benefit 
of  a  good  education,  the  disadvantages  they  labor  under  for  want  of  the 
means  of  acquiring  it  and  the  loud  call  there  now  is  and  no  doubt  will  be 
in  a  future  day  for  men  of  learning  to  fill  the  several  offices  of  church  and 
state,  etc.,  have  petitioned,  etc. 

To  be  abreast  of  our  times  we  must  go  a  step  farther  than 
this  old  eighteenth-century  draft  charter.  I  have  said  these 
things  to  you,  students  of  Union,  not  because  there  is  a  loud 
call  for  you  to  hold  offices,  but  because  you  are  a  part  of  the 
American  democracy  and  because  there  is  a  loud  call  for 
members  of  that  democracy  who  will  help  it  grow  in  realizing 
the  obligations  of  its  power.  Many  different  groups  or  classes 
in  the  population  of  a  country  make  each  its  own  contribu- 
tion to  the  common  public  opinion  and  action.  The  dwellers 
in  the  country  and  in  the  cities  have  different  points  of  view. 
The  men  who  work  on  the  farm,  the  men  who  work  in  the 
mines,  the  men  who  work  in  manufactories,  the  men  engaged 
in  commerce  and  transportation,  all  make  their  contribution, 
and  in  the  ultimate  result  the  views  of  each  are  modified  and 
corrected  by  the  views  of  all  the  others.  By  reason  of  your 
education  here  you  are  about  to  join  a  great  body  of  men  who 
are  fitted  to  contribute  a  special  element  towards  the  com- 
mon stock  of  judgment  in  our  country.  The  general  char- 
acter of  that  contribution  is  indicated  by  the  old  term 
applied  to  a  college  course,  "  a  liberal  education."  That 
is,  "  liberal,"  catholic,  expanded,  free  from  narrowness  and 
bigotry  in  ideas  or  doctrines,  appropriate  for  a  broad 
and  enlightened  mind.  I  do  not  suppose  that  you  have 
become  very  learned  here.  I  do  not  suppose  that  you  have 
gone  very  deeply  into  any  one  subject.  But  one  thing  has 
happened  to  you.    You  could  not  stay  here  four  years  with- 


58  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

out  its  happening.  That  is,  you  have  had  your  horizons 
pushed  back.  You  have  had  your  vision  removed  from  the 
little,  concrete  objects  which  fill  a  narrow  and  isolated  life 
and  have  been  forced  to  realize,  however  vaguely,  the  exist- 
ence of  a  vast  field  of  human  life  and  interest;  of  history  and 
science;  of  achievement  and  failure;  of  examples  and  warn- 
ings; outside  of  yourselves,  beyond  the  period  of  your  lives 
and  the  limits  of  your  homes.  You  have  acquired  a  bowing 
acquaintance  with  lessons  of  the  past  and  the  existence  of 
other  lands.  You  have  had  lifted  for  you  a  corner  of  the 
curtain  which  veils  the  realm  of  abstract  thought  from  less 
favored  intelligences.  No  one  of  you  can  have  been  so  indif- 
ferent or  so  dull  but  that  his  attitude  towards  life  will  be  to 
some  degree  more  liberal,  his  views  of  life  somewhat  broader. 
The  scale  of  values  by  which  you  estimate  the  little,  concrete 
things  and  personal  happenings  of  your  future  experience 
will  perforce  be  affected  by  the  consciousness  that  they  are 
all  a  part  of  the  vast  scheme  of  the  developing  civilization 
of  the  race.  Whatever  may  be  your  professions  or  callings, 
the  contribution  of  each  one  of  you  to  the  life  of  his  time 
should  be  the  impress  of  this  broader  view  upon  the  thought 
and  consciousness  of  the  democracy  to  which  you  belong. 
You  should  be  the  advocates  of  the  general  rule,  the  insistent 
guardians  of  the  principles  of  action.  To  refer  conduct  to 
principles  is  the  part  of  large  minds,  and  it  is  the  single  path 
of  safety  for  nations  as  for  individuals.  We  may  differ  as 
to  principles.  We  may  be  wrong  about  principles.  Never 
mind.  The  important  thing  is  to  have  them,  whether  we 
call  them  religion  or  morality  or  honor  or  justice  or  wisdom. 
The  one  fatal  thing  is  to  have  none,  and  to  guide  the  life  of  a 
man  or  of  a  democracy  only  by  the  demands  of  the  particular 
and  the  concrete,  the  impulse  and  the  attraction  of  the 
moment.  Under  the  broader  view  of  conduct  the  time  will 
come  when  for  all  our  American  democracy  the  sense  of  duty 


ADDRESS  AT  UNION  UNIVERSITY  59 

will  keep  equal  pace  with  the  assertion  of  right.  The  test  of 
political  action  will  be  primarily  the  effect  of  a  continuous 
course  of  such  action  upon  the  general  welfare.  The  main- 
tenance of  justice  will  include  the  willingness  to  do  justice 
to  other  men  and  to  other  nations,  and  liberty  will  mean,  not 
merely  liberty  for  one's  own  opinions  and  conduct,  but 
equally  the  liberty  of  others  in  adverse  opinions  and  differmg 
conduct. 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  ONEIDAS 

ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE    SOCIETY  OF   THE  SONS  OF  ONEIDA 
NEW  YORK  CITY,  MARCH  14,  1903 

1  OBSERVE  that  our  president  has  omitted  in  his  enum- 
eration the  Tribe  of  Tammany.  Is  it  possible  that  they 
alone  of  all  the  tribes  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  failed  to  tremble 
when  they  heard  the  war-whoop  of  the  Oneidas  ? 

I  have  just  come  from  the  land  of  the  Parting  of  the 
Waters.  For  one  whole  week  I  have  been  living  within  sight 
of  the  house  in  which  I  was  born  and  every  day  looking  out 
over  the  valleys  of  the  Oriskany  and  the  Mohawk  up  to  the 
far  blue  hills  of  the  Royal  Grants  on  the  western  edge  of 
the  Adirondacks;  I  looked  down  from  the  hills  to  the  west 
of  the  Oriskany  over  the  field  where  first  floated  in  the  smoke 
of  battle  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  where,  at  the  close  of  that 
fierce  struggle,  old  Herkimer  sat  and  smoked  his  pipe  as  life 
ebbed  away;  I  looked  down  on  the  spires  of  Utica  and 
Whitestown,  at  the  country  which  was  able  to  give  to  the 
state  such  men  as  Henry  R.  Storrs,  Joseph  Kirkland,  Samuel 
Beardsley,  Green  C.  Bronson,  Hiram  Denio,  Joshua  Spencer, 
Roscoe  Conkling  and  Francis  Kernan;  I  looked  down  upon 
the  pathway  of  empire,  upon  the  path  along  which  dragged 
the  weary  way  of  the  wagons  that  peopled  the  Great  West; 
on  the  silvery  stream  up  which  were  poled  the  flat  boats 
whose  cargoes  landed  at  Fort  Stanwix,  were  transferred  to 
Wood  Creek,  and  so  on  down  to  Oneida  Lake  and  Ontario; 
on  the  great  strategic  pathway  along  which  armies  have 
marched  and  the  fate  of  empire  has  been  decided;  at  the  seat 
of  the  power  which  was  dominant  in  the  North  American 
Continent,  above  all  other  powers,  before  the  whites  asserted 

61 


62  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

their  supremacy;  I  lived  under  the  shadow  of  the  walls 
raised  in  answer  to  the  pious  wish  of  the  missionary  Kirkland 
for  the  education  and  the  salvation  of  the  children  of  the 
Indians  with  the  children  of  the  whites,  and  which,  in 
response  to  his  Christian  hope,  gave  to  the  religious  faith  and 
education  of  the  country  Edward  Robinson  and  Albert 
Barnes.  And  now  I  have  come  here  to  see  how  you  have 
brought  from  that  favored  land  the  power,  the  resolution, 
the  hardness  of  fiber  and  the  capacity  for  labor  and  for 
achievement  native  to  the  soil  of  Oneida. 

I  am  glad  to  see  here  so  many  gentlemen  from  other 
counties,  Mr.  President,  that  they  may  profit  by  the 
influence  and  the  spirit  of  Oneida.  If  we  can  exercise  over 
them  the  same  influence  which  the  Iroquois  exercised  over 
the  tribes  from  the  sea-coast  to  the  Mississippi  we  will  make 
better  and  wiser  men  of  them. 

I  was  led  to  some  reflections  during  this  last  visit  home. 
Why  is  it  that  the  price  of  farm  land  in  central  and  northern 
New  York  is  today,  as  it  is  in  a  large  part  of  New  England, 
less  than  it  was  thirty,  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  ?  The  market 
is  better;  farmers  have  a  better  opportunity  to  sell  their  milk, 
for  I  believe  they  are  serving  milk  from  Oneida  county  to 
New  York  today;  they  have  a  better  opportunity  to  sell  their 
corn,  potatoes,  and  other  vegetables  —  all  the  products  of  the 
farm,  for  the  canning  factory  has  come  almost  to  the  farmer's 
door,  affording  a  means  of  preserving  and  conveying  their 
products  to  the  remotest  regions;  and  still  the  price  of  farm 
land  is  today  less  than  it  was  when  I  was  a  boy  in  Oneida 
county.  I  suppose  it  is  the  trend  of  population  towards  the 
cities.  I  suppose  it  results  from  a  comparison  between  the 
life  of  the  farmer,  with  its  hard  conditions,  and  its  severe 
labor,  and  the  life  which  is  possible  to  the  young  man  who 
goes  to  the  city  and  embraces  a  profession  or  gets  into  a 
business.     There  is  a  serious  side  to  it.    With  the  twenty- 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  ONEIDAS  63 

five  million  of  people  whom  we  have  now  in  the  United 
States  living  in  cities  —  indeed,  more  than  that  number,  I 
believe,  according  to  the  last  census  —  we  are  facing  a  new 
set  of  conditions  in  the  formation  of  national  character.  Life 
in  the  city  tends  to  alertness,  to  activity  of  mind,  to  the 
sharpening  of  the  faculties,  but  it  also  tends  to  a  straining 
and  intensity  and  refinement  of  the  nervous  system  which 
will  in  time  make  a  different  race  of  men.  There  is  much  in 
the  old  Antaean  myth  that  is  true  for  mankind  at  large.  If 
the  strong  man  is  to  continue  the  race  he  must  continue  it  in 
contact  with  the  soil.  No  body  of  men  who  have  lived  in 
cities  alone  can  perpetuate  themselves  as  a  strong,  self- 
possessed,  self-controlled  and  dominating  race.  We  must 
steady  the  nerves,  strengthen  the  sinews,  enlarge  and  build 
deep  the  foundations  of  body  and  of  morals  in  our  characters 
by  contact  with  the  soil,  by  the  sweetening,  steadying,  and 
calming  influences  of  nature,  of  sky,  and  tree,  and  field,  and 
water,  if  we  would  continue  the  American  people  as  the 
American  people  were  when  we  were  young  on  the  hillsides 
of  Oneida. 

We  do  well  to  gather  here  to  recall  the  memories  of  our 
old  life  in  our  old  homes,  but  the  best  thing  about  it  will  be  if 
it  leads  some  of  us  back  to  our  old  homes ;  if  it  leads  some  of 
us  to  reflect  upon  the  wretchedness  of  the  poor  boys  and  girls 
that  are  born  and  bred  in  city  streets,  and  leads  us  to  take 
them  back  where  they  can  have  the  freedom  and  the  joy  of 
the  country.  If  I  were  to  undertake  to  repeat  the  experi- 
ment of  Ben  Franklin,  to  propose  a  change  in  the  national 
bird  of  America,  I  would  not  seek  to  make  it  the  wild 
turkey  instead  of  the  predatory  eagle,  but  I  would  say  let 
the  homing  pigeon  be  the  bird  that  we  imitate. 

It  is  a  beneficent  provision  of  nature  that  as  age  comes,  as 
the  capacity  to  wrestle  in  the  thick  and  stress  of  life's  struggle 
declines,  the  memories  of  childhood  come  up  through  the 


64  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

strata  of  experience  with  which  middle  life  has  overlaid  them; 
that  as  one  ceases  to  live  in  the  future  because  the  possibili- 
ties of  life  have  become  settled  and  leave  no  further  room  for 
hope,  as  one  ceases  to  live  in  the  present  because  the  weak- 
ness of  sinews  makes  it  impossible  longer  to  struggle  with  the 
bustling  throng,  memory  goes  back  to  the  days  of  childhood; 
and  the  old  man  lives  over  again  the  experiences  of  youth; 
and  old  forms  and  faces,  old  scenes  of  childhood's  days, 
become  vivid  once  again.  Happy  the  man  who  in  his  declin- 
ing years  can  return  in  memory  to  the  home  to  which  our 
hearts  turn  tonight!  How  beautiful  the  green  hillsides  of 
the  Mohawk!  How  mighty  the  river  in  its  flood  in  the 
spring!  How  sweet  and  clear  the  bubbling  stream  of  the 
Oriskany !  How  glorious  and  superb  the  forests  of  beech  and 
maple  in  the  autumn !  How  crisp  and  nerving  and  strengthen- 
ing the  autumn  nights!  And,  above  all,  how  inspiring  the 
great  sweep  of  the  snow  field  down  the  sides  of  the  hills  and 
across  the  broad  valleys,  thirty,  forty,  fifty  miles  away,  of 
pure,  unbroken  white,  except  for  the  dark  patches  of  the 
hemlock  here  and  there !  How  cheery  the  sleigh  bells !  How 
sweet  the  girls  we  remember !  How  loud  sounds  the  shout  of 
merry  youth!  How  rings  the  skate!  How  swift  speeds  the 
sled!  How  happy  were  the  days  we  have  left  behind  us  in 
old  Oneida!  How  happy  the  memories  of  them  that  we 
treasure  for  our  old  age! 


JAMES  SCHOOLCRAFT  SHERMAN 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  EXERCISES,  UNITED  STATES  SENATE 
FEBRUARY  15.  191S 

On  February  15,  1913,  the  Senate  being  in  session  in  accordance  with  a 
resolution,  that  the  fifteenth  day  of  February  be  set  apart  for  appropriate 
exercises  in  commemoration  of  the  life,  character,  and  public  service  of  the  late 
James  S.  Sherman,  vice-president  of  the  United  States  and  president  of  the  Senate, 
Mr.  Root  said: 

VICE-PRESIDENT  SHERMAN  was  born  in  the  city  of 
Utica,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mohawk,  on  October  24, 
1855.  He  came  of  English  stock.  His  father,  Richard  U. 
Sherman,  was  a  native  of  the  same  county  and  was  one  of  its 
well-known  and  esteemed  citizens.  His  grandfather,  Willett 
Sherman,  was  one  of  the  early  settlers  upon  the  lands  relin- 
quished by  the  Oneida  Indians  toward  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  manufac- 
turers of  central  New  York.  The  grandson  was  graduated 
from  Hamilton  College  in  the  class  of  1878.  He  was  admitted 
to  the  bar  in  1880  and  became  a  successful  lawyer.  In  1884 
he  was  made  mayor  of  his  native  city.  In  1886  he  was  chosen 
by  the  people  of  the  great  manufacturing  region  of  the  upper 
Mohawk  to  represent  them  in  the  Fiftieth  Congress;  and  for 
more  than  twenty  years  he  continued  to  represent  them, 
with  but  one  break  in  his  continuous  service,  through  re- 
election to  the  Fifty-first,  Fifty-third,  Fifty-fourth,  Fifty- 
fifth,  Fifty-sixth,  Fifty-seventh,  Fifty-eighth,  Fifty-ninth, 
and  Sixtieth  Congresses.  He  became  a  potent  factor  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  He  was  an  active  member  of 
the  Committee  on  Interstate  and  Foreign  Commerce;  he 
was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs;  and  he  was 
long  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules,  one  of  that  little 

65 


66  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

group  of  three  constituting  a  majority  of  the  committee, 
who,  under  the  former  rules  of  the  House,  guided  the  course  of 
legislation  and  accomplished  the  nearest  approach  to  respon- 
sible parliamentary  government  which  this  country  has  ever 
seen.  Through  frequent  designation  as  chairman  to  preside 
over  the  House  sitting  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  where  so 
great  a  part  of  the  business  of  the  House  is  done,  he  gradually 
rose  to  a  general  recognition  as  a  parliamentarian  of  the  first 
order  and  a  presiding  officer  of  the  highest  effectiveness. 

In  Mr.  Sherman's  home  city,  as  the  years  passed,  evi- 
dences accumulated  of  the  respect  and  confidence  in  which  a 
community  so  rarely  errs,  while  it  renders  unpremeditated 
judgment  upon  the  character  of  one  known  through  the  con- 
tact and  observation  of  daily  life.  He  was  made  treasurer  of 
his  church,  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  of  Utica,  and  chair- 
man of  its  board  of  trustees.  He  was  chosen  to  be  president 
of  the  Utica  Trust  and  Deposit  Company.  He  was  made  a 
trustee  of  his  Alma  Mater  and  a  member  of  the  executive 
committee  of  its  board  of  trust.  Children  grew  up  about 
him  and  the  wife  of  his  youth,  in  a  home  where  virtue,  family 
affection,  cheerfulness,  honor,  and  obedience  ruled.  It  was 
one  of  those  homes  which,  indefinitely  multiplied  among  a 
people,  are  the  safe  foundation  of  just  and  free  self-govern- 
ment, and  sure  guarantees  of  the  future  in  a  republic.  From 
near  and  far  throughout  that  region  the  unfortunate  and 
struggling  learned  to  come  to  him,  their  Representative,  and 
his  kindness  and  ready  sympathy  never  failed  them.  No 
trouble  of  another  was  ever  too  great  or  too  small  to  com- 
mand his  attention.  His  patience  under  such  demands  was 
never  worn  out.  His  willingness  to  take  trouble  for  others 
was  never  over-taxed.  In  the  feelings  of  his  people,  grateful 
appreciation  of  the  poor  and  humble  for  his  kindly  service 
was  mingled  with  general  pride  in  the  honor  of  his  repre- 
sentation and  of  his  citizenship. 


JAMES  SCHOOLCRAFT  SHERMAN  67 

The  long  and  distinguished  career  as  a  Representative  in 
Congress  was  brought  to  a  close  by  Mr.  Sherman's  election 
to  the  Vice-Presidency  in  November,  1908.  He  was  renom- 
inated by  his  party  for  the  same  high  office  in  1912,  but  a 
fatal  malady  already  had  been  established,  and  before  the 
election,  at  his  home  in  Utica,  on  October  30,  1912,  his 
earthly  course  came  to  its  end. 

Senators  know,  but  few  outside  of  the  Senate  fully  appre- 
ciate, how  great  a  service  he  rendered  as  presiding  officer  in 
this  chamber  during  the  three  and  one-half  years  which  fol- 
lowed the  inauguration  of  March,  1909.  Only  experience  can 
give  a  full  understanding  of  the  difficulties  of  legislation,  the 
obstacles  to  progress  in  legislative  business  presented  by  the 
persistent  advocacy  of  a  multitude  of  varying  opinions,  and 
the  impossibility  of  wise  and  judicious  consideration,  when 
feelings  are  exasperated  and  personal  prejudices  and  antip- 
athies are  excited.  Only  through  experience  can  one  learn 
how  much  the  success  of  legislative  consideration  depends 
upon  the  spirit  which  pervades  the  legislative  chamber,  and 
how  much  depends  upon  the  firm  and  intelligent  application 
of  those  rules  of  procedure  which  the  experience  of  centuries 
has  shown  to  be  necessary  in  the  conduct  of  legislation. 
During  all  the  years  in  which  Vice-President  Sherman  pre- 
sided over  the  Senate,  we  felt  the  calming  and  steadying 
effect  of  a  serene  and  potent  presence  in  the  chair.  The  jus- 
tice of  his  rulings  was  the  product  not  merely  of  intellectual 
integrity,  but  also  of  essential  kindliness  of  feeling  and  con- 
sideration. Not  only  the  rulings  were  fair,  but  the  man  was 
fair.  He  was  strong  and  self-possessed  and  untroubled,  with 
a  gentle  and  delicate  sense  of  humor  subdued  to  the  propri- 
eties of  the  place;  with  a  swift  certainty  of  conclusion, 
founded  upon  knowledge  and  accurate  thinking,  carrying 
conviction  and  making  acquiescence  natural.  He  expedited 
business  by  always  doing  promptly  the  right  thing  without 


68  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

vacillation  or  delay.  In  the  rare  instances  when  he  found 
himself  mistaken,  prompt  acknowledgment  and  reparation 
were  accorded,  with  such  frank  sincerity  that  the  sufferer  by 
the  mistake  felt  himself  the  gainer.  He  was  positive  without 
dogmatism;  certain  without  personal  over-confidence.  He 
controlled  procedure  under  the  rules  without  making  them 
the  instruments  of  irritation  or  oppression,  and  without 
sacrificing  the  spirit  to  the  letter.  Senators  of  all  parties 
became  his  friends.  All  lamented  his  untimely  death,  and  all 
join  here  in  doing  honor  to  his  memory. 

All  associated  action  among  men  exhibits  an  inevitable 
conflict  between  the  idea  of  combined  efficiency  and  the  idea 
of  individual  freedom.  Neither  can  prevail  without  some 
sacrifice  of  the  other.  The  difference  is  temperamental,  and 
the  two  types  of  character  are  hard  to  reconcile  and  are 
prone  to  misjudgment,  each  of  the  other. 

Mr.  Sherman  was  of  the  type  which  seeks  efficiency  by  the 
law  of  its  nature.  His  instincts  were  for  order,  discipline, 
intelligent  direction,  voluntary  subordination  to  a  common 
purpose,  definite  conclusions,  achievement.  So  in  politics, 
from  first  to  last,  he  was  always  for  party  organization  and 
party  responsibility.  In  the  House  he  was  always  for  the 
most  effective  rules  of  procedure,  and  as  a  parliamentary 
presiding  officer  he  naturally  made  the  application  of  parlia- 
mentary rules  a  means  of  progress  rather  than  an  obstacle. 
His  character  exhibited  in  a  high  degree  the  virtues  of  his 
type.  He  had  the  capacity  for  sympathetic  appreciation  of 
the  feelings  and  motives  of  others  which  makes  associated 
action  easy.  He  had  a  genius  for  friendship  which  concili- 
ated affection  and  disarmed  enmity.  He  thought  much  of 
the  common  cause  in  which  he  was  enlisted,  and  little  of  his 
own  advantage;  much  of  general  success  and  little  of  personal 
advancement.  He  was  modest  and  unassuming  —  never 
vaunted  himself  or  pressed  himself  forward.     He  never 


JAMES  SCHOOLCRAFT  SHERMAN  C9 

sought  the  spotlight  on  the  public  stage.  He  was  free  from 
the  exaggerated  egoism  which  has  wrecked  so  many  fair 
causes.  He  had  the  unselfishness  and  self-control  to  obey 
where  others  rightly  led,  and  he  had  the  clearness  of  intelli- 
gence, the  force  of  personality,  and  the  decision  of  character 
to  lead,  so  that  others  might  follow.  He  was  simple  and 
direct  in  thought  and  action.  He  was  frank  and  truthful 
and  entirely  free  from  that  cowardice  which  breeds  decep- 
tion. He  had  naturally  an  unconscious  courage  which 
needed  no  screwing  to  the  sticking-point.  Among  all  the 
multitude  who  have  known  him,  in  boyhood  and  in  man- 
hood, in  private  and  in  public  life,  not  one  can  recall  a  mean 
or  ignoble  or  cruel  or  deceitful  word  or  act  on  his  part.  He 
was  sincere  in  his  beliefs,  he  was  faithful  to  his  word,  he  was 
steadfast  in  his  friendships,  he  was  loyal  to  every  cause  that 
he  espoused.  His  life  made  men  happier;  his  example  is 
making  men  better.  His  service  will  endure  in  the  fabric  of 
our  institutions. 

In  this  Republic,  unlike  many  nations  which  enjoy  con- 
stitutional government,  we  grant  no  titles  of  nobility  and  no 
decorations  of  honor.  As  public  servants  complete  their 
work  and  pass  from  the  stage  of  action,  the  judgment  of  their 
contemporaries  finds  no  such  definite  means  of  expression; 
and  so  we  have  come  here  today  to  render  in  this  ceremony 
the  verdict  of  our  generation  upon  the  private  virtues  and 
the  public  service  of  James  Schoolcraft  Sherman.  The 
Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Chief  Justice 
and  the  Associate  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  ambas- 
sadors and  ministers  of  foreign  powers,  the  President  and  his 
Cabinet,  the  civil  and  military  and  naval  officers  of  the 
nation,  a  multitude  of  friends  who  knew  him,  and  of  country- 
men who  knew  him  not,  join  here  to  set  in  the  archives  of  our 
Government  a  record  of  honor  which  will  remain  so  long  as 
the  nation  he  served  so  well  shall  endure. 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  BROWN 

RESPONSE  FOR  THE  EDUCATIONAL  FOUNDATIONS  AT  THE 

INAUGURATION  OF  DR.  ELMER  ELLSWORTH  BROWN 

AS  CHANCELLOR  OF  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY 

NOVEMBER  9,  1911 

IT  is  interesting  that  the  name  of  Elmer  Ellsworth  should 
come  to  be  the  head  of  the  institution  which  half  a  century 
ago  was  made  famous  by  Theodore  Winthrop  in  Cecil 
Dreeme. 

Notwithstanding  the  manly  and  vigorous  voice  that  we 
have  heard  this  morning  from  the  far  distant  past,  there  are 
not  many  left  under  the  sun  who  remember  Chrysalis  College, 
in  the  fine  gray  old  collegiate  Gothic  building  on  Washing- 
ton Square.  As  I  look  back  to  the  early  sixties  and  recollect 
the  conditions  which  existed  then,  the  conditions  of  the 
University  of  the  City  of  New  York,  of  the  boys'  schools, 
one  called  Columbia  and  one  the  Free  Academy  of  the  City, 
and  look  across  the  long  distance  of  time  and  see  what  there 
is  now,  I  am  deeply  impressed  by  the  fact  that  there  has  been 
a  firm,  steady,  uniform,  progressive  development  of  the 
educational  institutions  of  our  country.  There  has  been 
much  free  will  for  Presbyterianism  to  lay  hold  of,  but  there 
has  been  more  foreordination  imposed  by  the  genius  of  free 
government,  the  natural  and  necessary  development  of  a 
free,  self-governing  people.  The  multitude  of  impulses  to 
promote  religion,  to  minister  to  personal  vanity,  to  advance 
the  fortunes  of  individuals,  to  add  honor  to  localities,  to 
promote  the  development  of  particular  branches  of  science; 
all  the  great  variety  of  impulses  which  have  led  individuals 
to  establish  educational  foundations,  have  been  working  out 
results,  quite  independent  of  the  purposes  and  forecasts  of 

71 


72  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

the  individual  founders.  This  myriad  of  impulses,  coming 
from  individual  will,  has  been  moulded  by  the  genius  of  a  self- 
governing  people  into  a  system  out  of  which  gradually  are 
emerging  systematic  results.  It  has  seemed  as  if  our  educa- 
tional institutions  have  had  little  or  no  policy.  Indeed,  they 
have  had  but  little  consciousness  of  an  intentional  policy. 
They  have  been  following  the  course  of  their  destiny,  driven 
on  by  forces  not  understood  by  any  man  at  their  head,  or 
even  all  of  them  put  together. 

Gradually  we  see  emerging  a  differentiation  of  our  educa- 
tional institutions.  The  old-fashioned  college,  the  institu- 
tion, however  it  may  be  improved  and  developed  from  the 
germ  of  the  old-fashioned  college  into  the  place  of  training 
for  the  whole  man  to  make  him  ready  for  whatever  comes 
in  life,  is  a  separate  class  from  the  vocational  institution, 
broadening  and  taking  in  its  thousands  of  students,  filling 
their  many  separate  desires  to  fit  themselves  for  separate 
and  special  vocations  in  life.  Now  come  the  foundations 
designed  for  the  enlargement  of  knowledge  without  imme- 
diate and  direct  relation  to  the  instruction  of  youth,  designed 
to  relieve  the  men  engaged  in  instruction  from  the  increasing 
duties  of  research,  represented  by  the  Carnegie  Institution 
of  Washington,  which  is  one  of  the  institutions  I  have  the 
honor  to  represent  here,  so  that  research  may  be  prosecuted, 
knowledge  broadened,  and  excursions  into  the  field  of  human 
possibilities  undertaken  far  beyond  the  possibility  of  the 
institution  whose  first  duty  is  to  teach.  As  the  multitude  of 
the  founders  has  increased,  the  spirit  of  the  foundation  has 
spread;  and  while  Dr.  Brown  comes  here  from  the  western 
universities,  he  comes  not  from  an  alien  system.  The  spirit 
of  John  Harvard  and  Elihu  Yale  and  Eleazar  Wheelock  and 
Samuel  Kirkland  and  all  of  that  old  and  honorable  list  of  men, 
who,  centuries  ago,  devoted  their  substance  and  their  prayers 
to  the  foundation  of  liberal  centers  of  learning  in  our  coun- 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  BROWN         73 

try,  has  spread  through  the  multitude  of  donors,  through  the 
army  of  instructors,  until  it  has  permeated  the  great  body  of 
the  people,  and  through  all  the  great  West  that  spirit  is  inter- 
preted by  the  people  at  the  polls,  who  have  established  the 
great  state  institutions  and  are  now  sending  back  their  sons 
and  men  of  their  training,  to  broaden  and  invigorate  the 
expression  of  that  same  spirit  in  the  older  institutions.  The 
western  state  universities  of  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  Illinois, 
California  and  all  the  rest,  are  the  same  thing  that  the 
individual  founded  long  ago  in  the  East,  expressed  through 
the  multitude  who  constitute  government. 

I  cannot  stop  without  saying  one  word  of  a  contribution 
made  to  this  university  by  the  other  educational  institution 
which  I  represent  here  today,  Hamilton  College.  Forty- 
five  years  ago,  John  Norton  Pomeroy,  of  the  class  of  1847, 
of  Hamilton,  was  at  the  head  of  the  University  Law  School; 
and  he  was  one  of  the  few  men  who  gave  the  impulse  that  has 
made  the  university  what  it  is  today,  a  noble,  able,  devoted, 
self-sacrificing  instructor.  A  conspicuous  illustration  of  that 
highest  of  all  functions  of  the  teacher,  in  that  he  presented 
to  the  young  men  of  his  time  the  spectacle  of  a  life  made 
happy  without  wealth,  without  office,  without  any  power 
except  the  power  of  natural  sympathy,  and  with  no  reward 
but  the  joy  of  continually  seeking  and  finding  truth. 

Chancellor  Brown,  I  am  sure  that  I  can  say  for  all  the 
educational  foundations  of  our  state  and  our  country,  that 
you  will  find  in  them,  in  their  officers,  their  friends,  and  their 
alumni,  that  sympathy  and  support  without  which  no  human 
power  avails.  In  the  republic  of  letters  it  is  especially  true 
that  no  man  gains  by  the  downfall  of  another.  It  is  all  up 
and  none  down,  because  schools  of  learning  are  participators 
in  the  wealth  of  all  learning.  There  are  no  Tripolis  in  the 
education  of  the  United  States.  I  extend  to  you  continual 
sympathy,  comradeship,  and  God-speed. 


THE  OBJECT  AND  THE  OPPORTUNITY 
OF  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

ADDRESS  UPON  THE  CONFERRING  OF  THE  DOCTORATE  OF  LAW, 

JUNE  8,  1904 

At  the  commencement  exercises  on  its  one  hundred  and  fiftieth  anni- 
versary, June  8,  1904,  Columbia  University  conferred  upon  Mr.  Root  its 
degree  of  doctor  of  laws.  In  presenting  Mr.  Root  for  this  degree,  Professor 
John  W.  Burgess  said: 

You  know,  sir,  and  we  all  know,  that  as  a  man  and  a  citizen  he  is, 
like  the  knight  of  old,  without  fear  and  without  reproach;  that  as  a 
lawyer  and  jurist,  he  stands  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  American  bar; 
that  as  an  orator,  he  has  no  superior;  and  that,  as  a  statesman  and  an 
administrator,  he  has  taught  his  country  and  the  world  two  great 
lessons,  at  least  two,  one  that  an  American  civilian  can  organize  the 
armed  force  of  his  nation  more  perfectly  and  more  effectively  than  any 
purely  military  man  whom  that  nation  has  ever  produced  —  demon- 
strating anew  and  in  a  peculiarly  significant  way  the  fundamental 
principle  of  American  polity,  that  the  military  power  and  the  military 
spirit  are  subordinate  to  the  civil  power  and  the  civil  spirit;  and  the 
other  that  a  free  republic  can  discharge  imperial  duties  successfully 
and  honorably,  without  sacrificing  or  impairing  or  imperilling  its  own 
historic  liberties. 

Mr.  President,  the  highest  honors  of  this  university,  great  as  they 
are,  are  not  too  great  for  such  a  citizen;  and  without  further  com- 
mendation, I  venture  to  present  to  you  the  Honorable  Elihu  Root, 
and  to  ask  for  him,  at  your  hands,  the  degree  of  doctor  of  laws  of  our 
university. 
In  conferring  the  degree,  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  president  of  the 
university,  said  on  behalf  of  the  trustees: 

Elihu  Root,  bachelor  of  arts  of  Hamilton  College;  eminent  alike 
in  law  and  in  public  administration,  trusted  counsellor  of  two  Presi- 
dents of  the  United  States,  to  be  always  remembered  in  our  country's 
history  as  foremost  in  promoting  the  organization  of  a  sound  military 
system,  and  in  increasing  the  scope  and  efficiency  of  military  educa- 
tion, as  well  as  wise,  just,  and  liberty-loving  in  the  government  of  the 
nation's  wards,  I  gladly  admit  you  to  the  degree  of  doctor  of  laws  in 


76  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

this  university,  and  confer  upon  you  all  the  rights  and  privileges  that 
belong  thereto.    In  token  thereof  I  hand  you  this  diploma. 

At  the  alumni  luncheon  on  the  same  day,  Dr.  John  Howard  Van 
Amringe,  dean  of  Columbia  College,  thus  introduced  Mr.  Root  to  his 
fellow-alumni : 

Many  years  ago,  nearly  half  a  century,  this  college  added  to  its 
responsibilities  by  establishing  a  law  school.  At  the  head  of  it  was 
placed  an  alumnus  of  Hamilton  College,  New  York,  Mr.  Theodore  W. 
Dwight,  who  proved  himself  a  phenomenally  able  expositor  and 
teacher  of  law.  Not  many  years  ago,  the  United  States  added  to  its 
responsibilities  and  entered  upon  a  new  enterprise  in  government 
requiring  profound  legal  knowledge,  wisdom  and  skill.  It  also  looked 
to  Hamilton  College  and  found  among  the  alumni  the  man  it  sought, 
and  committed  the  undertaking  to  him.  As  you  all  know,  he  dis- 
charged with  high  distinction  the  delicate  and  difficult  duties  of  his 
great  place,  and  so  has  written  his  name  large  in  the  history  of  this 
country  —  the  Honorable  Elihu  Root,  late  secretary  of  war  of  the 
United  States,  doctor  of  laws  of  this  university. 
Mr.  Root  responded  as  follows: 

IT  is  peculiarly  delightful  for  me  to  find  myself  brought 
into  this  fresh  relation  to  this  great  university,  because 
for  many  years  relations  of  old  personal  affection  and  deep 
interest  have  existed  between  me  and  it.  Long  ago  a 
curious  interest  was  excited  in  my  mind  by  an  old  statute  of 
our  state  which  coupled  in  one  enactment  the  college  which 
was  my  Alma  Mater  and  the  then  small  and  struggling  col- 
lege that  has  become  this  great  university.  I  wrote  down 
this  morning  the  beginning  of  that  law.  It  was  "  An  Act 
instituting  a  Lottery  for  the  Promotion  of  Literature,  and  for 
other  Purposes,"  passed  April  15,  1814,  ninety  years  ago.  It 
began  with  the  preamble:  "  Whereas,  well  regulated  semi- 
naries of  learning  are  of  immense  importance  to  every 
country,  and  tend  especially,  by  the  diffusion  of  science  and 
the  promotion  of  morals,  to  defend  and  perpetuate  the 
liberties  of  a  free  state:  Therefore,  Be  it  enacted,  that  there 
shall  be  raised  by  Lottery  "  —  such  and  such  sums;  and  the 
statute  then  proceeds  to  make  provision  out  of  the  sums  thus 


THE  OBJECT  OF  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY        77 

raised  for  Hamilton  College,  for  Union  College,  and  for 
Columbia  College,  and  for  the  Asbury  African  Church  in  the 
city  of  New  York.    Other  days,  other  manners.  .  .  . 

I  first  knew  the  college  in  those  days  when  Professor 
Torrey's  cottage  stood  on  the  corner  of  Forty-ninth  Street 
and  Madison  Avenue;  Professor  Joy's  cottage  on  the  corner 
of  Fiftieth  Street  and  Madison  Avenue;  when  the  college 
itself  was  domiciled  in  the  old  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum  in  the 
middle  of  the  block;  when  the  School  of  Mines  had  just  been 
established  in  the  basement  of  the  building;  and  when  the 
institution  was  presided  over  by  that  great  educator  to  whom 
I  am  moved  to  pay  honor  today,  Dr.  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  a  man 
who  by  the  infirmity  of  deafness  was  cut  off  from  much 
communication  with  his  fellows  and  participation  in  active 
life,  which  is  deemed  essential  to  successful  influence,  but 
whose  broad  and  far-seeing  mind  mapped  out  the  course 
which  has  led  to  Columbia's  greatness.  In  the  enjoyment  of 
the  intimate  associations  with  the  faculty  and  of  the  social 
life  of  Columbia  in  those  distant  days,  I  acquired  an  affection 
which  gives  to  the  diploma  that  your  president  has  handed 
to  me  today  a  special  value,  and  which  will  make  me  cherish 
it  as  long  as  I  live.  And  I  learned  then,  and  I  have  thought 
a  hundred  times  since  of  the  true  and  substantial  basis  of  our 
university.  .  .  . 

There  is  a  time  in  life  for  everything,  not  only  for  dance 
and  song.  There  is  a  time  for  initiative  and  enthusiasm,  as 
there  is  a  time  for  reason,  for  conservatism,  for  caution.  The 
time  for  initiative,  the  time  for  that  disregard  of  consequences 
which  makes  men  willing  to  undertake  great  things,  the  time 
when  a  man  can  do  great  things  that  the  mass  of  men  cannot 
believe  to  be  possible  —  is  the  time  of  youth.  It  would  be 
a  most  deplorable  thing  to  make  the  price  of  education  for 
Americans  the  surrender  of  the  years  of  the  greatest  initiative 
and  enthusiasm,  and  of  the  hope  and  capacity  for  great  deeds, 


78  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

to  the  work  of  acquisition  alone.  Let  us  keep  our  boys  at 
work  getting  knowledge  out  of  books;  but  not  while  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  is  ebbing  away  and  the  capacity  of  doing 
things  is  lapsing  back  behind  them.  Learning  itself  is  but 
little.  The  man  who  is  made  is  the  great  thing,  and  the  work 
of  doing  is  the  great  thing  in  the  man.  Kept  too  long  in 
academic  halls,  youth  begins  to  strain  and  long  for  the  active 
work  of  life.  Do  not  let  us  keep  him  too  long,  until  that 
noble  and  beneficent  impulse  has  passed  away. 

But  it  is  not  the  man  alone  that  the  university  is  to  make. 
As  age  comes  and  the  good  and  evil  of  life  are  counted  up, 
it  is  universal  experience  that  the  question  arises:  For  what 
good  is  it  all  ?  What  to  us  is  the  value  of  life  ?  To  what 
purpose  is  all  the  labor  and  all  the  effort  ? 

I  think  that  the  answer  to  the  question  is  found  in  some 
degree  in  the  positivist  philosophy.  No  man  lives  to  himself. 
The  object  of  all  training,  of  all  education,  of  all  human  effort, 
is  not  the  construction  of  a  single  man  who  dies  and  is  for- 
gotten. The  achievements  of  the  day  are  of  little  account. 
Benefits  to  the  community,  to  the  nation,  to  the  civilization, 
are  all  that  are  of  value;  and  the  production  of  the  individual 
man  whose  influence  shall  live  forever  in  the  weal  of  human- 
ity —  that  is  the  great  object  of  the  university,  as  it  is  of  all 
human  training  and  of  all  human  effort.  Civilization  pro- 
ceeds in  its  majestic  course.  The  mass  of  mankind  are  being 
lifted  up  from  hard  conditions  of  poverty  and  ignorance. 
The  participation  of  the  individual  man,  framed  and  trained 
in  the  University  of  Columbia  in  that  majestic  progress,  that 
is  the  object  of  this  university.  No  opportunity  has  been 
seen  upon  earth  equal  to  the  opportunity  that  this  univer- 
sity has.  Situated  in  this  great  city  where  gather  the  leaders 
of  thought  and  opinion,  the  leaders  of  science  and  art,  the 
leaders  in  all  things,  the  men  who  are  accomplishing  great 
works,  material  and  moral,  the  men  who  lead  in  charity  and 


THE  OBJECT  OF  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY        79 

in  morals  and  religion  —  no  university  ever  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  train  men  and  show  each  one  how  to  do  his  part 
towards  forwarding  the  progress  of  civilization,  of  humanity, 
of  all  that  the  institutions  of  our  country  mean  for  Americans, 
equal  to  that  which  Columbia  has  today. 

I  never  pass  that  old  quarter  on  Madison  Avenue,  twice 
rebuilt  since  I  first  knew  it,  without  thinking  of  the  beneficent 
influence  the  simple,  unselfish  and  noble  men  who  lived  there 
have  exercised;  and  upon  this  new  field,  with  its  splendid 
buildings  and  its  wide  expanse,  with  all  the  accessories  that 
wealth  can  give,  with  all  the  influence  that  capable  minds, 
and  learning,  and  morality,  and  religion  can  bring  to  bear 
upon  the  successive  ranks  of  American  youth  who  shall 
throng  its  halls  —  upon  this  new  field,  may  we  not  believe 
that  Columbia  University  will  be  for  many  a  century  to  come 
a  source  of  that  lighting  and  leading  of  noble  character  which 
shall  make  the  great  American  experiment  of  justice  and 
liberty  not  for  a  few,  but  for  all  mankind,  however  humble  — 
the  American  experiment  of  government  by  the  people, 
through  the  enlightenment  of  the  people,  a  success  to  the 
remotest  generations. 


THE  SUPREME  TREASURE  OF  OUR 
COUNTRY 

ADDRESS  UPON  RECEIVING  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  LAWS 

FROM  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK, 

OCTOBER  22.  1915 

On  October  22,  1915,  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
at  the  close  of  their  annual  convocation,  conferred  upon  Elihu  Root  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Laws.  In  conferring  this  degree,  Dr.  John  H.  Finley,  the  president  of 
the  Board  of  Regents,  made  the  following  address : 

Mr.  Root  :  I  represent  not  only  all  the  Regents  of  the  University,  but 
through  them  the  thousands  of  schools  and  educational  institutions  having 
membership  in  this  university  and  with  them  the  invisible  company  of  the 
past  whose  spirits  have  striven  for  this  great  commonwealth,  and  whose 
bodies  are  now  of  its  dust,  from  Alexander  Hamilton,  James  Duane,  George 
Clinton  and  John  Jay,  who  had  a  part  in  laying  the  foundations  of  this 
state  and  of  this  university,  even  to  him  who  has  gone  from  the  living 
since  the  meeting  only  a  month  ago  at  winch  he  made  the  motion  to  con- 
fer this  degree  upon  you  —  Andrew  J.  Shipman.  Of  varying  creeds  in 
politics  and  religion,  of  dissonant  traditions  and  purposes,  they  unite  in 
acclaiming  the  courage,  the  clarity  of  vision,  nobility  of  expression,  the 
genius  for  administration,  the  unwearying,  single-minded  devotion  to 
public  good,  which  have  given  to  this  state  and  through  this  state  to  the 
nation,  through  the  nation  to  the  western  continent,  and  through  the 
New  World  to  the  Old,  one  whose  recognition  gives  assurance  that  in 
the  large  freedom  of  a  democracy,  the  many  follow  in  high  undertakings 
those  who  are  fittest  to  lead. 

In  conferring  the  degree  for  the  state,  by  the  authority  of  the  Regents, 
I  follow  the  language  which  was  used  in  the  first  bestowal  of  this  degree 
in  1792: 

Since  honor  is  the  reward  of  merit,  and  for  that  reason  it  is  custom- 
ary in  all  schools  of  learning  for  those  who  surpass  all  others  in  char- 
acter, talent,  and  their  knowledge  of  the  liberal  arts,  to  be  endowed 
with  the  greatest  praise  and  the  highest  honors,  we,  therefore,  the 
Regents  of  The  University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  by  the  power 


82  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

delegated  to  us  by  the  state,  by  these  presents,  desire  to  bear  witness 
that  this  honorable  and  learned  man 

Elihtj  Root 

has  been  exalted  to  the  rank  of  Doctor  of  Laws;  and  that  to  him  have 
been  granted  all  the  rights  and  privileges  that  are  wont  to  be  conferred 
either  here  or  elsewhere  upon  those  raised  to  the  high  honor  of  the 
doctorate. 

That  this  act  may  have  more  authority,  we  have  had  these  letters 
protected  by  our  common  seal  this  twenty-second  day  of  October,  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  fifteen. 

And  Mr.  Root  replied: 

WHAT  can  I  say,  except  that  I  am  deeply  sensible  of 
the  great  honor  conferred  upon  me  in  the  bestowal 
of  this  rare  degree  by  the  Regents  of  the  University,  that 
I  am  most  grateful  and  affected  by  the  too  partial  friendship 
which  has  been  exhibited  in  the  recountal  of  my  poor  ser- 
vices, and  that  I  shall  try,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  to  do  no  dis- 
honor to  this  great  institution  ? 

You  are  the  guardians  of  the  true  treasure.  It  is  entrusted 
to  you  to  see  to  it  that  the  spirit  of  those  simpler  times  when 
the  genius  of  Hamilton  outlined  the  scheme  of  education,  the 
head  of  which  was  to  be  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  is  not  lost.  It  is  due  to  you,  to  this  great  and  ancient 
institution,  that  the  succeeding  generations  of  the  children 
of  the  state  have  become  the  members  of  a  great  free  com- 
monwealth. It  is  not  so  much  what  they  learn,  it  is  not  so 
much  what  they  know,  as  what  they  are.  Do  they  love 
liberty,  love  it  so  much  that  they  will  accord  it  to  others  as 
well  as  claim  it  for  themselves  ?  Are  they  willing  to  do  jus- 
tice for  liberty's  sake  ?  Do  they  love  their  country  and  not 
merely  say  they  love  it  ?  Do  they  rejoice  in  the  prosperity 
of  all  Americans  ?  Do  they  sorrow  in  the  disaster  of  all 
Americans  ?  Does  the  love  of  liberty  and  justice  in  their 
expanding  natures  transcend  the  desire  for  wealth  and  station 
and  ease  and  fame  ? 


SUPREME  TREASURE  OF  OUR  COUNTRY    83 

It  is  for  you  to  answer  the  question,  and  upon  the  answer 
rests  the  perpetuity  of  our  free  institutions,  the  life  of  our 
country,  for  from  across  the  Atlantic,  among  the  multitude 
of  lessons  that  crowd  in  upon  us,  clearest  of  all  is  the  lesson 
that  nations  live  or  die  according  to  the  character  of  their 
people.  Wealth,  arms,  munitions,  discipline,  armies,  navies, 
are  all  splendid  services,  but  the  character  of  the  people,  the 
character  into  which  the  children  are  growing,  determines 
the  life  or  death  of  the  nation. 

And  this,  the  supreme  treasure  of  our  country,  in  our 
beloved  state  is  entrusted  to  you.  And  if  I  may  hope  that 
this  degree  is  evidence  of  your  belief  that  in  some  fair  meas- 
ure I,  too,  possess  that  liberal  and  free  and  just  spirit  into 
which  you  are  training  the  children  of  our  state,  I  shall  prize 
it  indeed  above  all  other  possessions,  for  that  alone  is  worth 
the  having.  All  these  little  things  that  we  do  go  down  the 
stream  and  are  forgotten,  but  the  building  into  the  structure 
of  the  world's  freedom,  the  structure  of  liberty  and  order, 
under  justice,  of  every  life,  though  it  be  forgotten,  is  worth 
the  living  for.  I  thank  you  for  numbering  me  among  the 
pupils  of  your  instruction  and  the  fellows  of  your  spirit. 


THE  DUTCH  FOUNDERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  SIXTY-FIRST  ANNIVERSARY  DINNER  OF  THE 

SAINT    NICHOLAS    SOCIETY    OF    THE    CITY    OF 

NEW  YORK,  DECEMBER  7,  1896 

A  HIGH  honor  I  esteem  it,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen, 
to  be  invited  to  talk  to  you  about  your  ancestors.  That 
the  son  of  a  Yankee  from  Massachusetts  should  be  permitted 
to  talk  about  elegant  gentlemen  from  Holland  is  a  privilege. 
But  I  find  myself  confused, sir;  I  have  been  perhaps  unusually 
abstemious  this  evening,  and  yet  I  confess  myself  confused 
when  I  find  Mayor  Strong  a  Dutchman  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt  a  German  and  that  stout  old  Dane  King  Canute 
an  Englishman.  I  doubt  whether  I  must  not  join  the  ranks 
of  my  friend  Mr.  de  Peyster  and  confess  myself  altogether  a 
lunatic. 

For  twenty-five  years  I  have  listened  each  year  at  the 
dinners  of  the  New  England  Society  to  that  charming,  elo- 
quent and  touching  speech  of  Depew's  of  which  he  has  told 
us,  of  how  little  we  have  to  do  and  how  much  you  have  to  do 
with  the  establishment  of  the  great  American  people,  —  a 
speech  which  was  in  one  sense  always  the  same,  because  it 
always  carried  the  same  truths,  but  which  was  always 
adorned  with  fresh  flowers  of  fancy,  always  carried  to  the 
heart  as  well  as  to  the  mind,  with  the  most  consummate  and 
ever-renewed  art  of  rhetoric  and  eloquence.  For  the  same 
long  period,  I  have  been  studying  the  sphinx-like  character 
of  de  Peyster.  I  have  pondered  over  his  silence,  the  impene- 
trable reserve  with  which  he  has  wrapped  himself  while  he 
has  considered  the  virtues  and  the  achievements  of  the 
Dutch,  and  in  thinking  of  what  de  Peyster  could  have  said, 

85 


86  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

had  he  been  gifted  with  the  power  of  utterance,  I  have 
learned  much  of  what  you  really  are. 

I  remember,  too,  one  summer  afternoon,  when  in  the  back 
garden  of  one  of  the  old  Washington  Street  houses  in  the  old 
Dutch  town  of  Schenectady,  three  boys  lay  upon  the  bank 
looking  upon  the  gently  flowing,  placid  Mohawk,  and  one  of 
them,  then  in  the  pride  of  beauty  of  a  splendid  youth,  with 
opportunities  and  capacities  for  a  great  future,  was  Douglass 
Campbell,  unfolding  the  already  budding  plan  of  the  great 
work  which  sixteen  years  afterwards  he  gave  to  the  world  as 
an  imperishable  monument  to  the  achievements  of  a  great 
race.  I  feel  grieved,  Mr.  President,  that  on  the  Saturday 
before  last  Thanksgiving,  old  Peter  Stuyvesant  could  not 
have  been  upon  Manhattan  Field  and  have  heard  the  war 
cry  of  the  tribes  who  came  from  about  the  Fort  of  Good 
Hope,  to  make  the  last  great  attack  upon  the  forces  from 
Fort  Nassau.  How  the  old  man  would  have  stumped  up  and 
down  the  gridiron;  with  what  enthusiasm  he  would  have 
repelled  the  suggestion  of  their  war  song: 

Have  you  heard  about  old  Eli  ? 

He  has  just  come  to  town, 
He  is  hanging  round  Manhattan  Field 

To  throw  old  Nassau  down. 
Looking  for  the  tiger  and  he  must  be  found. 

And  how,  when  from  out  the  jackstraw  combinations  of 
that  well-fought  field,  twenty-two  orange-colored  legs 
writhed  and  waved  in  final  triumph  towards  Heaven,  the 
soul  of  Peter  Stuyvesant  would  have  shouted  to  the  high  and 
mighty  States-General,  sitting  in  high  places  in  another 
world,  the  news  that  the  impudent  assertion  of  Governor 
Nichols,  that  the  Yankees'  possession  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can hemisphere  was  undisputed,  had  been  laid  low  and 
absolutely  refuted. 


THE  DUTCH  FOUNDERS  OF  NEW  YORK    87 

Thus  much  of  a  Dutch  partisan  I  have  become  by  associa- 
tion and  by  attentive  and  respectful  listening.  I  must  say, 
however,  ungracious  though  it  may  be  —  coming  from  with- 
out and  partaking  of  the  nature  of  a  criticism  —  that  two 
things  are  undisputed  regarding  the  founders  of  New  Amster- 
dam. The  first  is  that  they  were  not  reformers.  They 
belonged  to  no  City  Vigilance  League,  to  no  Good  Govern- 
ment Club.  They  came  here  for  trade.  They  came  here  for 
purposes  of  gain.  They  came  here  for  no  philanthropic 
object  whatever.  Nowhere  in  all  this  broad  world  is  to  be 
found  a  better  illustration  of  the  wisdom  with  which  Provi- 
dence works  out  great  and  good  results  from  the  ordinary 
operations  of  human  selfishness  and  the  ordinary  human 
capacity  for  the  pursuit  of  the  nimble  sixpence,  spreading  the 
domain  of  civilization  and  fructifying  the  earth.  The  other 
is,  that  your  ancestors  met  their  final  downfall  and  were 
compelled  to  surrender  their  empire  into  the  hands  of  the 
English,  because  of  their  own  criminal  conduct.  The  real 
cause  of  the  downfall  of  the  Dutch  dominion  upon  this  island 
and  in  this  part  of  the  continent  was  the  crime  of  the  demone- 
tization of  wampum.  The  naked  savage  they  could  meet  and 
beat  at  his  own  game.  No  one  can  say  that  they  were  inferior 
in  courage,  in  devotion  and  warlike  capacity  to  the  Yankees 
or  the  Swedes.  But  the  distress,  the  subordination  of  the 
working  classes,  the  paralysis  of  the  body  politic,  which  arose 
from  the  control  exercised  by  the  plutocracy  over  that  com- 
munity, and  the  depreciation  of  the  purchasing  power  of 
wampum,  was  the  cause  of  their  utter  downfall. 

I  had  some  question  as  to  where  Mayor  Strong  got  his  date 
of  1655.  It  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  very  significant  date  in  the 
history  of  this  country.  It  is  the  date  of  the  demonetization 
of  wampum.  In  1641  a  wise  and  just  law  was  enacted  under 
William  the  Testy,  which  provided  that  until  the  first  of  May 


88  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

then  following,  five  beads  of  wampum  should  be  equivalent 
to  one  stiver,  and  that  from  the  first  of  May  and  thereafter 
six  beads  of  wampum  should  be  equivalent  to  one  stiver. 
Had  the  community  of  New  Amsterdam  opened  their  mints 
to  the  coinage  of  wampum,  without  the  aid  or  consent  of  any 
other  nation,  they  would  still  have  been  the  rulers  of  this 
city.  They  abandoned  the  position  they  had  taken.  They 
allowed  the  men  who  lived  in  fine  houses  to  control  them; 
and  in  1655  they  gave  up  that  established  ratio  between 
wampum  and  the  stiver,  and  they  enacted  that  eight  beads 
should  be  necessary  to  equal  one  stiver  as  a  legal  tender. 

The  process  of  demoralization  went  on.  The  result  was 
that  the  Yankees  of  New  England  poured  their  wampum 
into  the  mints.  They  flooded  the  country  with  irregular 
wampum,  with  wampum  made  the  Lord  knows  how.  The 
industrious  Indians  who  surrounded  Manhattan  Island  found 
themselves  unable  to  secure  a  sufficient  amount  of  the  cur- 
rency in  return  for  their  produce.  Prices  went  down,  and  it 
was  necessary  again  to  change  the  ratio.  Finally  they  came 
to  the  point  where  they  were  compelled  to  provide  that 
twenty-four  white  beads  and  twelve  black  beads  of  wampum 
were  equal  to  one  stiver.  The  result  was  inevitable.  They 
were  compelled  to  demonetize  wampum  entirely  and  sub- 
stitute beaver  skins,  and  that  the  Yankees  cruelly,  and  per- 
haps, unjustly,  pronounced  a  skin  game.  And  so  they  fell  an 
easy  prey  to  Governor  Nichols  in  1654.  But  with  these  few 
slight  exceptions  I  can  say  nothing  of  the  Dutch  that  is  not 
good.  The  Dutch  who  came  here  were  brave  —  brave, 
sturdy,  independent,  just,  and  generous  men.  That  they 
were  brave  no  one  need  doubt.  No  one  will  conclude  from 
the  pages  of  Washington  Irving  that  life  for  them  was  a 
comic  opera.  They,  as  well  as  my  own  people  on  the  shores 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  had  their  sufferings  and  their  trials. 
They  had  their  wars;  they  had  their  heroism;  they  had  their 


THE  DUTCH  FOUNDERS  OF  NEW  YORK         89 

dangers,  and  they  met  them  like  men.  But  they  were  just. 
The  whole  history  of  the  colonies  proves  that  they  were 
sturdy,  independent  men.  The  very  difficulties  which  accom- 
panied their  whole  history  shows  that.  They  brought  with 
them  from  Holland,  ingrained  in  their  very  nature,  the 
principle  of  local  self-government,  and  the  principal  troubles 
of  the  colony  arose  from  their  unwillingness  to  submit  to 
dictation  from  the  nineteen  at  home  and  from  the  West 
India  Company  and  from  the  States-General.  No  men 
upon  this  continent  ever  more  sturdily,  more  loyally  or  more 
magnificently  asserted  the  right  to  govern  themselves  than 
the  staid  Dutchmen  who  came  here  only  for  the  purposes  of 
gain. 

And  one  other  great  characteristic  I  will  mention  among 
the  many,  which  if  the  hour  were  earlier  I  would  speak  of, 
and  that  is  their  wonderful  religious  toleration.  Their  great 
characteristic,  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  Dutch, 
it  seems  to  me,  has  always  been  the  sustained,  inexpugnable 
self -poise  of  their  character.  Other  people  are  brave;  other 
people  are  adventurous;  other  people  are  law-abiding; 
other  people  are  just;  other  people  are  generous;  but  that  the 
Dutch  people,  after  their  history,  after  all  they  suffered  in 
religion's  cause,  after  the  terrible  trials  that  they  went 
through,  could  still  be  tolerant,  is  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs 
of  the  human  nature  of  any  race  since  history  began.  France 
has  never  recovered  from  the  loss  of  sturdy  life  which  she 
suffered  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Huguenots  after  the  revoca- 
tion of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  Americans  would  have  suffered 
in  the  same  degree  had  the  intolerance  of  my  ancestors  not 
been  corrected  by  the  open  arms  and  the  generous  asylum 
offered  by  yours,  which  saved  to  America  the  gentle  spirits 
of  Ann  Hutchinson,  of  Lady  Deborah  Moody,  of  Francis,  of 
Throckmorton,  of  Nicholson,  and  of  a  score  of  hundreds 
of  others,  who,  driven  by  the  intolerance  of  other  colonies, 


90  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

found  here  a  resting-place  and  spent  their  energy,  their 
ability  and  the  efforts  of  their  lifetime  in  building  up  this 
America  of  ours. 

The  acknowledgment  of  all  New  England  is  due  to  that 
sweet  temper,  that  kindly  spirit,  that  unconquerable  self- 
poise  which  enabled  the  Dutchmen,  after  all  their  sufferings, 
still  with  open  arms  to  welcome  people  of  all  races  and  all 
creeds  to  this  asylum  of  the  New  World. 

The  founders  of  New  Amsterdam  —  who  are  they  ?  They 
are  the  Dutch.  Yet  more,  —  if  the  souls  of  the  dead  men 
live  still  in  their  works,  they  are  all  the  hosts  who  for  all  the 
years  that  have  passed  since  Peter  Stuyvesant  laid  down  the 
reins  of  power,  have  come  from  every  land,  from  every  creed, 
to  help  build  up  this  imperial  Republic. 

They  are  all  the  brightest  and  the  best,  who  from  the 
length  and  breadth  of  this  great  land  have  come  to  join  in 
the  influences  and  the  achievements  of  the  city  which  has  ever 
been  dominated  by  the  broad,  the  just,  the  equal  souls  of 
Dutchmen. 

Norman  and  Saxon  and  Dane  are  we, 
But  we  are  all  Danes  for  thee  — 
Alexandra 

sings  the  poet.  Yankees  and  Dutch  and  Southerns  are  we, 
and  from  all  the  races  from  over  the  sea,  but  we  are  all 
Americans  for  thee  —  America. 


JOHN  HAY 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  JOHN  HAY  LIBRARY, 
BROWN  UNIVERSITY,  NOVEMBER  11,  1910 

John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Cabinets  of  Presidents  McKinley  and  Roose- 
velt, died  July  1, 1905,  and  he  was  succeeded  July  7  by  Elihu  Root.  Five  years  after 
Mr.  Hay's  death,  on  November  11,  1910,  the  library  building  of  Brown  University, 
Providence,  R.  I.,  of  which  Mr.  Hay  was  a  graduate,  class  of  1858,  was  opened  to 
the  public.  This  library  bears  the  name  of  John  Hay,  and  was  erected  in  his  memory. 

The  erection  of  the  library  had  been  made  possible  by  a  gift  of  $150,000  by 
Andrew  Carnegie,  on  condition  that  an  equal  amount  be  obtained  from  others,  which 
was  easily  secured  from  twenty-nine  persons.  It  was  Mr.  Carnegie's  suggestion 
that  the  building  be  erected  as  a  memorial  to  Mr.  Hay.  A  memorial  tablet  in  the 
entrance  hall  bears  in  letters  of  gold  the  following  inscription: 

EN  MEMORY   OF 

JOHN  HAY 

OF  THE   CLASS   OF   1858 

POET   HISTORIAN   DIPLOMATIST 

STATESMAN 

WHO  MAINTAINED   THE   OPEN   DOOB 

AND   THE   GOLDEN  RULE 

THIS   BUILDING 

HA8   BEEN   ERECTED  BT 

HIS   FRIENDS  AND 

FELLOW  ALUMNI 

HIGH  credit  is  due  to  a  country  that  can  appreciate  such 
a  man  as  John  Hay;  that  has  justly  estimated  his  merit, 
has  valued  his  service,  and  honors  his  memory.  A  people 
capable  of  this  have  something  about  them  too  fine  to  permit 
them  to  be  given  over  to  the  worship  of  merely  material 
things.  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  sharper  con- 
trast than  that  between  the  character  of  Mr.  Hay  and  the 
confident,  thick-skinned,  self-assertive,  pushing,  hustling 
character  ordinarily  associated  with  success  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  this  hurly-burly  world.    The  note  in  his  daily  life 

91 


92  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

which  most  challenged  the  attention  of  an  observer  was  that 
of  extreme  refinement,  sensitiveness,  and  reserve.  He  was 
unassuming,  retiring,  self-effacing.  He  was  thoroughly 
democratic  in  his  sympathies  and  convictions.  He  took  men 
at  their  character  value,  without  regard  to  place  or  power  or 
wealth.  He  was  indifferent  to  popularity,  while  he  was 
keenly  alive  to  the  approval  of  all  those  whose  judgment  he 
respected  and  whose  friendship  he  valued.  His  life  was  his 
own  and  he  shared  it  only  with  those  he  loved.  He  never  put 
it  in  evidence  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion  or  entered  it  in  com- 
petition for  the  prizes  of  public  life.  The  proud  modesty  of 
his  self-respect  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  testify  in  his 
own  behalf  or  to  allege  his  own  merits.  He  left  others  to 
judge  what  he  was  and  what  he  accomplished,  without  even 
aid  from  him,  while  his  generous  and  loyal  nature  was  never 
weary  of  giving  credit  and  praise  and  honor  to  his  associates 
and  contemporaries  to  the  extreme  limit  of  their  deserts. 

He  was  sensitive  to  beauty  in  all  its  forms  —  beauty  in 
nature,  in  art,  in  form  of  literary  expression,  in  thought,  in 
human  character.  The  principles  of  Christian  ethics  con- 
trolled his  judgments  and  his  practice.  A  fine  and  correct 
taste  determined  the  attractions  and  repulsions  of  his  life, 
but  he  was  not  narrow  or  finical.  He  had  the  enthusiasm  of 
humanity.  He  had  breadth  of  view  and  kindness  of  judg- 
ment. He  had  the  saving  grace  of  humor  to  a  very  high 
degree,  and  his  humor  was  exquisite,  delicate,  and  subtle. 
His  estimates  of  men  and  their  lives  cut  through  all  appear- 
ances to  the  realities,  were  independent  of  clothes  and  houses 
and  the  accident  of  manners,  and  seized  upon  whatever  was 
true  and  human,  whether  it  was  in  the  miner's  hut  or  the 
farmer's  ranch  or  the  millionaire's  palace.  The  scope  of  his 
human  sympathy  was  universal.  He  could  write  both  the 
Pike  County  Ballads  and  Castilian  Days.  Quality  appealed 
to  him,  whether  in  an  earl  or  a  longshoreman.    He  had  a  fine 


JOHN  HAY  93 

sense  of  proportion  and  of  the  fitness  of  things.  He  had 
imagination,  without  which  no  man  can  be  great  in  business 
or  science  or  government  any  more  than  in  literature  or  art. 

The  charm  of  expression  that  we  all  find  in  his  writings 
appeared  no  less  in  his  conversation.  He  was  the  most 
delightful  of  companions.  One  found  in  him  breadth  of 
interest,  shrewd  observation,  profound  philosophy,  wit, 
humor,  the  revelations  of  tender  and  loyal  friendship  and  an 
undertone  of  strong  convictions,  and  now  and  then  the  vibra- 
tion of  intense  feeling,  and  now  and  then  expression  of  a 
thought  that  in  substance  and  perfection  of  form  left  in 
the  mind  the  sense  of  having  seen  a  perfectly  cut  precious 
stone. 

His  nature  had  its  penalties.  He  shrank  from  rude,  per- 
sonal contact.  As  things  fine  and  noble  gave  him  pleasure, 
things  brutal  and  sordid  caused  him  pain.  He  could  fight 
for  a  cause  or  a  friend,  but  he  shrank  from  fighting  for  him- 
self. Everything  personally  competitive  or  assertive  was 
distasteful.  In  his  later  years  the  prospect  of  a  public 
appearance  made  him  positively  ill  for  days  before  the  time 
arrived. 

Under  ordinary  conditions  one  would  expect  such  a  nature 
to  withhold  itself  from  the  practical  conflicts  of  life,  to 
develop  the  critical  faculty  at  the  expense  of  its  dynamic 
force,  and  to  play  its  part  rather  as  an  observer  and  com- 
mentator than  as  an  actor  in  the  affairs  of  the  world. 

There  were,  however,  other  elements  in  this  character 
which  forbade  such  a  life.  Mr.  Hay  was  born  and  bred  in 
what  was  then  the  rude  frontier  land  of  the  Middle  West. 
His  youth  was  passed  amid  the  working  of  the  mighty  forces 
that  urged  on  across  the  prairies  and  valleys  of  the  continent 
the  most  stupendous  movement  of  population  since  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  that  built  up  and  dedi- 
cated this  republic  to  freedom.     The  air  he  breathed  was 


94  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

charged  with  the  tense  feelings  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  con- 
flict. The  indignation,  the  wrath,  the  exhortations,  the 
prayers,  the  stern  resolves,  the  bloodshed  and  sacrifice,  the 
moral  uplifting  and  sublimation  of  that  great  struggle 
between  freedom  and  slavery  were  borne  in  upon  this  gentle, 
receptive,  and  impressionable  soul  in  its  unfolding.  He 
returned  from  his  sojourn  as  a  student  in  the  grateful  asso- 
ciations of  this  learned  institution  to  the  battlefield  of 
Miltonic  conflict  in  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates. 

From  somewhere  in  the  past,  perhaps  from  Scotland  of  the 
Covenant,  perhaps  from  the  German  Palatinate,  harried  and 
ravaged  in  religious  wars,  had  come  a  strain  of  religious 
feeling  and  capacity  for  self-devotion  that  answered  to  the 
influences  of  this  environment.  The  youth  knew  Lincoln 
and  became  his  disciple.  During  four  years  in  the  White 
House  the  inspiration  and  controlling  power  of  that  great 
nature  guided  the  growth  of  the  young  assistant  secretary. 
The  relation  between  them  was  not  the  ordinary  official  rela- 
tion between  a  great  officer  and  a  young  assistant.  It  was 
personal  and  affectionate.  Often  in  later  times,  when  Mr. 
Hay  was  premier  in  the  Cabinets  of  President  McKinley  and 
President  Roosevelt,  some  incident  of  service  in  the  White 
House  would  recall  to  his  mind  events  of  the  earlier  days 
among  the  same  familiar  scenes,  and  the  telling  of  the  story 
with  all  the  charm  and  graphic  power  we  know  so  well  would 
leave  an  impression  upon  his  associates  never  to  be  forgotten. 
One  such  recital  illustrates  the  relation  between  the  two. 
Through  the  center  of  the  second  story  of  the  White  House 
runs  a  long  corridor  from  the  extreme  east  to  the  extreme 
west.  Mr.  Lincoln  slept  in  a  room  at  the  western  end  and  the 
young  assistant  secretary  slept  in  a  little  room  at  the  south- 
eastern corner.  The  President,  oppressed  and  disturbed  by 
the  cares  and  perplexities  and  nervous  tension  of  the  great 
war,  was  often  sleepless,  and  often,  when  he  had  long  sought 


JOHN  HAY  95 

sleep  in  vain,  he  would  rise  and  go  down  to  the  boy's  room 
and  waken  him  in  the  dead  of  night,  and,  sitting  on  the  edge 
of  his  bed,  would  read  aloud  to  him  from  some  favorite  book 
until  the  current  of  thought  was  changed  and  sleep  seemed 
possible.  Sometimes  it  was  the  Bible;  sometimes  Shaks- 
pere;  sometimes  Tom  Hood.  The  spiritual  insight  of  the 
great  liberator  divined  in  the  soul  of  the  boy  the  sympathy 
and  responsiveness  which  returned  to  the  reader  a  calm  and 
solace  he  could  not  find  in  the  cold,  dull  page  alone.  How 
often  have  the  listeners  to  that  tale,  as  their  duties  brought 
them  again  and  again  to  the  scene,  imagined  the  tall,  gaunt 
form  of  Lincoln,  clad  in  white,  passing  down  the  long,  dimly 
lighted  corridor,  seeking  comfort  against  his  cares  from  the 
sympathy  of  the  noble  youth  in  the  thoughts  to  which  he 
loved  to  turn.  Was  ever  a  boy  so  fortunate!  Was  ever  a 
character  so  influenced  and  guided  in  the  development  of  its 
most  impressionable  years!  From  that  time  we  may  well 
believe  came  the  large  and  kindly  view,  the  deep  sense  of  the 
seriousness  of  life  underlying  the  wit  and  humor  and  sensi- 
tiveness to  impressions  of  the  beautiful,  the  genuine  love  of 
his  country  and  its  people,  the  love  of  humanity,  of  peace 
and  justice  with  mercy,  the  capacity  for  loyalty  to  great 
causes,  and  the  unquestioning  realization  of  duty  to  play  a 
man's  part  in  the  world  of  action. 

Upon  this  foundation  was  built  up  the  character  that  Mr. 
Hay  brought  to  the  great  office  of  secretary  of  state.  He 
brought  also  the  results  of  wide  and  varied  training  in  his 
maturer  years.  Five  years  as  secretary  of  legation  in  Paris, 
in  Vienna,  and  in  Madrid,  two  years  as  assistant  secretary 
of  state,  service  as  ambassador  to  Great  Britain,  had  given 
him  the  technique  of  the  profession  of  diplomacy;  had  taught 
him  the  language  of  diplomacy,  in  which  words  so  often 
have  a  far  different  weight  and  meaning  from  the  same  words 
used  in  the  other  professions,  at  the  bar,  in  business,  and  in 


96  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

literature.  He  had  learned  the  methods,  the  conventions, 
the  etiquette,  the  prejudices,  the  delicate  and  difficult  art,  of 
diplomatic  polemics.  He  had  learned  how  to  avoid  the 
blundering  obtuseness  to  the  sentiments  and  real  feelings  of 
others  which  so  often  brings  to  nought  the  good  intentions  of 
well-meaning  but  uninstructed  negotiators,  and  an  occasional 
illustration  of  which  has  suggested  the  reproach  implied  in 
the  phrase,  "  shirt-sleeves  diplomacy." 

Five  years  as  an  editorial  writer  for  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  a  considerable  period  as  its  responsible  editor  had 
broadened  his  knowledge  and  interest  in  the  multitude  of 
questions  affecting  the  internal  interests  of  America,  and  had 
given  him  a  familiarity  with  public  men  and  public  affairs. 
His  life  had  been  passed  among  men  of  thought  and  men  of 
action.  Letters,  art,  science,  business,  public  life,  the  pro- 
fessions, had  contributed  the  friendships  that  enlisted  his 
sympathies.  He  knew  many  places  and  their  people;  many 
sides  of  life;  many  points  of  view.  He  came  to  the  State 
Department  just  at  the  time  when  the  conclusion  of  the  war 
with  Spain  opened  a  new  era  in  the  relations  between  the 
United  States  and  the  other  nations  of  the  earth.  The  estab- 
lishment of  the  new  relations  was  important,  exigent,  and 
critical.  It  concerned  American  prestige  and  prosperity,  the 
country's  place  in  the  estimation  of  the  world,  its  opportunity 
for  influence  for  its  own  good  and  for  the  good  of  mankind. 
The  conjuncture  of  the  time  and  the  man  was  most  fortunate. 
Mr.  Hay  impressed  upon  the  diplomacy  of  the  United  States 
at  this  critical  period  a  quality  of  courtesy,  of  consideration, 
of  competency  in  dealing  with  diplomatic  questions,  and  a 
quality  of  simplicity  and  truthfulness  worthy  of  the  disciple 
of  Lincoln.  The  little  questions  that  trouble  so  many  small 
men  —  petty  tricks  and  deceptions  and  subterfuges  and 
small  advantages  —  had  no  place  in  his  scheme  of  conduct. 
Always  the  broad  view,  the  kindly  judgment,  the  considerate 


JOHN  HAY  97 

treatment,  the  true  dignity  of  nations,  the  true  interests  of 
his  people  and  of  civilization,  guided  his  action.  We  may 
feel  warranted  in  believing  that  his  administration  of  our 
foreign  affairs  evoked  sentiments  of  respect  and  friendly 
judgment  throughout  the  world.  The  impress  of  his  work 
and  influence  will  long  continue  to  be  a  salutary  force  in  the 
conduct  of  our  foreign  affairs. 

Among  the  multitude  of  things  that  he  did  wisely  and  skill- 
fully we  may  recall  the  settlement  of  the  Alaskan  Boundary 
dispute.    The  rough  miners  on  each  side  of  the  disputed  line 
were  wholly  intolerant  of  opposing  claims  and  perfectly 
ready  to  fight  for  their  own  rights,  and  at  any  moment  a  new 
discovery  of  gold  in  the  disputed  territory  might  have  led 
to  a  conflict  that  would  have  put  all  western  Canada  and 
western  America  ablaze.     The  Joint  High  Commission  of 
1898,  which  was  convened  for  the  settlement  of  a  dozen 
questions  between  the  United  States  and  Canada,  came  to  a 
deadlock  on  the  Alaskan  question  and  broke  up  without 
action.    With  the  greatest  good  sense  and  skill,  a  practical 
modus  vivendi,  a  judicious  treaty,  and  a  tribunal  to  hear  and 
determine,  the  difficulty  was  disposed  of  forever.    The  treat- 
ment of  our  relations  with  England  as  a  neutral  during  the 
Boer  War;   the  substitution  of  the  separate  and  sole  owner- 
ship of  Tutuila  for  the  impracticable  condominium  which  had 
existed  in  Samoa;  the  laying  of  the  foundation  for  the  rescue 
of  Santo  Domingo  from  the  condition  of  anarchy  and  bank- 
ruptcy and  the  establishment  of  the  system  of  assistance  by 
the  United  States  which  is  now  making  that  country  peace- 
ful  and   prosperous;    the   settlement  of   American   claims 
against  Turkey;    the  sympathetic  treatment  of  the  wrongs 
against  the  Jews  in  Rumania  and  in  Russia;   the  mediation 
between  Venezuela  and  her  creditors,  whose  action  threat- 
ened an  infringement  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  —  all  these  are 
entitled  to  note  and  to  high  credit.    There  were,  however, 


98  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

three  great  fields  of  diplomatic  action  for  which  Mr.  Hay 
should  always  be  especially  remembered. 

He  gave  vital  aid  to  the  definite  system  for  the  peaceable 
settlement  of  international  disputes,  which  up  to  this  time 
has  been  known  as  the  system  of  arbitration  and  which 
received  its  form  in  the  first  Hague  Conference  of  1899. 

The  Convention  for  Arbitration  signed  at  The  Hague  was 
purely  voluntary  in  its  provisions  and  it  was  regarded  by 
most  of  the  European  nations  as  merely  sentimental  and 
academic.  It  was  the  United  States,  under  Mr.  Hay's  direc- 
tion of  its  foreign  office,  that  led  the  way  in  turning  this 
theoretical  scheme  into  a  practical  working  system.  The  first 
case  taken  to  the  Tribunal  was  under  our  treaty  with  Mexico 
of  May  22,  1902,  submitting  to  its  decision  the  so-called 
Pious  Fund  controversy  as  to  the  rights  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  in  California  to  a  portion  of  the  Mexican  church 
moneys,  and  the  first  decision  of  the  Tribunal  was  its  decision 
in  favor  of  the  United  States  in  that  case. 

When  in  1903  England,  Germany,  and  Italy  had  united 
in  a  warlike  demonstration  against  Venezuela  to  compel 
the  payment  of  her  debts,  and  Venezuela  had  appealed  to  the 
United  States  for  aid,  it  was  under  Mr.  Hay's  guidance  that 
arbitration  was  substituted  for  war  and  the  nations  were  led 
to  the  bar  of  The  Hague  Tribunal  for  the  determination  of 
their  rights. 

The  real  obstacles  to  arbitration  consist  not  in  the  difficulty 
of  making  speeches  about  it  or  in  formulating  theories  in 
favor  of  it  to  which  every  one  will  agree,  but  in  the  practical 
working  out  of  the  system,  the  application  of  the  theory  to 
concrete  cases.  It  is  the  difference  between  a  prospectus  and 
a  successful  business  enterprise.  Every  one  knows  that  to 
make  a  prospectus  is  easy  —  to  succeed  in  business  is  hard. 
It  was  in  this  field  of  practical  difficulty  that  Mr.  Hay  came 
to  the  rescue  of  The  Hague  Tribunal  and  furnished  that  ele- 


JOHN  HAY  99 

ment  of  respect  for  the  Tribunal  as  a  working  machine  which 
was  necessary  to  rescue  it  from  exile  in  Utopia.  Then  he 
followed  with  a  series  of  arbitration  treaties  in  which  practi- 
cally all  the  countries  that  took  part  in  the  first  Hague  Con- 
ference joined  in  agreement  to  submit  their  differences  with 
the  United  States  to  The  Hague  Tribunal.  These  treaties 
failed  of  ratification  by  the  Senate  because  of  a  purely  inter- 
nal question,  but  they  furnished  the  basis  of  international 
assent  upon  which  Mr.  Hay's  successors  have  been  able  to 
give  effect  to  his  purposes. 

Mr.  Hay's  diplomacy  opened  the  way  for  the  construction 
of  the  Panama  Canal.  When  he  took  office  all  progress  in 
that  direction  was  blocked,  as  it  had  been  since  1850,  by  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  which  bound  the  United  States  to 
Great  Britain  as  a  participant  in  any  enterprise  for  the  con- 
nection of  the  two  oceans.  Upon  his  negotiation  that  treaty 
was  abrogated  and  the  United  States  was  set  free  to  accom- 
plish the  great  work  itself.  Then  followed  the  negotiations, 
far  advanced  towards  completion,  with  Nicaragua;  and  then 
the  negotiations  with  Colombia  for  the  right  to  the  Panama 
route,  which  culminated  in  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty;  the 
negotiations  with  the  French  canal  company,  which  ended 
in  the  purchase  of  their  rights;  the  revolution  in  Panama 
consequent  upon  the  rejection  at  Bogota  of  the  Hay-Herran 
Treaty;  the  swift  and  just  recognition  of  the  Panama  Repub- 
lic, an  act  as  to  the  propriety  and  rightfulness  of  which 
Mr.  Hay  never  wavered  nor  hesitated  for  an  instant.  Then 
came  the  treaty  with  Panama;  and  the  work  of  piercing  the 
barrier,  uniting  the  oceans,  changing  the  trade  routes  of 
the  world,  and  fulfilling  the  dreams  of  the  great  navigators 
was  begun. 

Mr.  Hay  led  the  world  in  determining  the  relations  of 
western  civilization  to  the  vast  empire  of  China  and  in  pre- 
serving the  integrity  of  that  empire  with  an  open  door  of 


100  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

equal  opportunities  for  the  commerce  of  the  world.  When 
he  took  office  Russia  was  pressing  down  upon  Manchuria 
from  the  north  and  held  possession  of  the  peninsula  of  the 
Regent's  Sword,  with  the  great  fortress  of  Port  Arthur 
guarding  the  entrance  to  the  bay  of  Chili.  England  had 
acquired  a  lease  of  Wei-hai-wei  for  a  military  and  naval  base 
with  which  to  offset  Port  Arthur,  at  the  same  time  holding 
her  vantage  ground  on  the  south  at  Hong-Kong,  and  her 
sphere  of  influence  covering  the  entire  valley  of  the  Yangtze. 
France  was  pressing  against  the  empire  with  its  possession 
of  Tonquin  on  the  southwest;  Germany  had  exacted  pos- 
session of  Kiao-chau  and  part  of  the  province  of  Shantung 
for  her  vantage  ground  in  the  anticipated  struggle,  and 
Japan  was  training  her  armies  and  building  up  her  navy 
across  the  narrow  seas,  awaiting  her  opportunity  for  her 
share  when  the  time  of  dismemberment  should  arrive.  It  had 
come  to  be  tacitly  assumed  that  whatever  in  China  one 
nation  did  not  take,  some  other  nation  would,  and  so  the 
competition  for  possession  went  on.  The  United  States,  alone 
of  all  the  Powers  having  interests  in  the  Orient,  desired  no 
part  of  China  and  was  free  from  suspicion  of  selfish  purpose 
in  its  affairs.  Her  position  furnished  an  opportunity  of 
which  Mr.  Hay  availed  himself  for  one  of  those  signal  ser- 
vices to  mankind  which  entitle  the  doer  to  a  place  in  history. 
During  his  first  year  in  the  State  Department  he  began  the 
negotiations  which  resulted  in  his  identic  note  to  the  Powers 
of  September,  1899,  and  culminated  in  the  identic  note  of 
July  3,  1900,  and  the  universal  assent  of  the  Powers  to  the 
policy  stated  in  these  words: 

The  policy  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  to  seek  a  solution 
which  may  bring  about  permanent  safety  and  peace  to  China,  preserve 
Chinese  territorial  and  administrative  entity,  protect  all  rights  guaranteed 
to  friendly  powers  by  treaty  and  international  law,  and  safeguard  for  the 
world  the  principle  of  equal  and  impartial  trade  with  all  parts  of  the 
Chinese  Empire. 


JOHN  HAY  101 

The  assent  of  all  the  Powers  to  the  principle  thus  declared 
was  equivalent  to  a  self-denying  ordinance  barring  them 
from  further  aggression.  A  principle  of  right  conduct  was 
established  by  which  all  future  action  was  to  be  judged. 
Unanimity  of  assent  carried  to  each  Power  the  assurance  that 
it  was  safe  in  conforming  its  conduct  to  the  principle  declared. 
The  process  of  dismemberment  was  checked  and  China's 
opportunity  for  regeneration  and  progress  was  secured.  This 
was  followed  by  the  negotiation  of  the  treaty  of  October  8, 
1903,  which  at  the  same  time  secured  larger  opportunities  for 
American  commerce  and  laid  down  the  lines  for  China's 
rational  development.  It  bound  China  to  abolish  the  likin 
—  that  system  of  internal  customs  duties  which  keeps  her 
provinces  apart,  impedes  trade,  and  prevents  national 
growth.  It  provided  for  uniformity  of  external  duties;  for 
the  revision  of  the  mining  laws  and  the  development  of 
mineral  wealth;  for  the  protection  of  trade-marks,  patents, 
and  copyrights;  for  a  uniform  national  coinage;  and  a 
reform  of  the  judicial  system. 

In  February,  1904,  when  Russia  and  Japan  were  about  to 
make  Manchuria  the  theater  of  war,  it  was  to  Mr.  Hay  that 
the  Powers  turned  to  secure  from  both  combatants  their 
assent  to  respect  the  neutrality  of  Chinese  soil  and  the 
preservation  of  China's  administrative  entity. 

The  policies  which  made  possible  the  construction  of  the 
Panama  Canal  and  the  open  door  in  China,  were  but  parts  of 
a  greater  policy,  broader  in  its  scope  and  looking  far  into  the 
future.  They  were  steps  towards  the  participation  of 
America  in  the  great  future  of  the  Pacific.  Half  a  century 
ago  the  imagination  of  William  H.  Seward  was  kindled  to  the 
belief  that,  as  the  commerce  of  the  world  had  broadened 
from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Atlantic,  it  was  still  to 
broaden  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  The  correctness  of 
that  forecast  has  become  each  year  more  distinct  and  certain. 


102  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

We  are  just  beginning  to  learn  of  the  enormous  mineral 
wealth  of  British  Columbia,  Alaska,  Siberia,  China.  Improve- 
ments in  transportation  and  communication  are  bringing 
the  coasts  of  that  vast  ocean  nearer  together  than  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean  were  to  the  Phoenicians  or  to  the 
Venetians.  The  awakening  of  the  Orient  to  the  industrial 
arts  of  western  civilization  is  opening  vast  and  indefinite 
possibilities  of  new  production  and  consumption.  By  a 
long  series  of  apparently  unrelated  steps,  America  has  been 
drawn  gradually  towards  her  opportunities  in  this  great 
future.  The  cession  of  California,  the  Oregon  treaty,  the 
purchase  of  Alaska,  the  annexation  of  Hawaii,  the  taking  of 
the  Philippines,  reveal  themselves  in  retrospect  as  successive 
steps  all  in  the  same  direction.  It  remained  to  construct  and 
control  the  western  avenue  of  approach  to  the  Pacific 
through  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  and  to  establish  in  the 
Orient  a  standard  of  respect  and  confidence  for  the  unselfish 
purposes  and  moral  power  of  the  government  which,  with 
all  its  faults  and  shortcomings,  still  works  in  the  spirit  of 
Washington  and  Lincoln,  and  seeks  the  prosperity  of  its 
people  in  the  paths  of  peace  without  weakness  and  of  justice 
with  charity.  Poetic  vision,  wisdom  of  statesmanship,  skill 
of  trained  diplomacy,  have  done  their  work,  and  the  great 
opportunity  of  the  Pacific  lies  before  our  people  and  their 
children. 

In  most  of  his  undertakings  Mr.  Hay  was  met  with  kind- 
ness and  magnanimous  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  Powers 
with  which  he  dealt.  It  was  so  in  the  Alaska  Boundary 
Treaty;  in  the  abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty;  in 
the  arbitration  treaties;  in  the  general  assent  to  the  preser- 
vation of  the  integrity  of  China.  Few  of  us  can  realize  the 
long  and  weary  path  leading  to  such  a  final  assent  —  the  diffi- 
culties to  be  overcome;  the  pitfalls  to  be  avoided;  the  objec- 
tions to  be  answered;  the  prejudices  to  be  smoothed  away; 


JOHN  HAY  103 

the  discouragements  sufficient  to  daunt  any  but  the  stoutest 
heart.  The  international  statesman  finds  in  the  Powers  with 
whom  he  deals  a  response  according  to  the  spirit  in  which  he 
works.  Narrow  selfishness  meets  suspicion  and  distrust. 
Considerate  fairness  and  the  broad  views  of  generous  states- 
manship meet  a  response  in  kind.  The  spirit  of  John  Hay 
made  it  impossible  for  others  to  continue  narrow  and  petty 
in  dealing  with  him;  and  guided  by  his  sensitive  apprecia- 
tion of  the  character  and  feelings  of  others,  made  effective  by 
wisdom  and  skill,  that  pure  and  noble  spirit  achieved  a  great 
work  for  the  country  he  loved.    He  himself  has  said: 

There  are  many  crosses  and  trials  in  the  life  of  one  who  is  endeavoring 
to  serve  the  commonwealth,  but  there  are  also  two  permanent  sources  of 
comfort.  One  is  the  support  and  sympathy  of  honest  and  reasonable 
people.  The  other  is  the  conviction  dwelling  forever,  like  a  well  of  living 
water,  in  the  hearts  of  all  of  us  who  have  faith  in  the  country,  that  all  we 
do,  in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  love  of  the  land,  will  somehow  be  overruled 
to  the  public  good;  and  that  even  our  errors  and  failures  cannot  greatly 
check  the  irresistible  onward  march  of  this  mighty  Republic,  the  consum- 
mate evolution  of  countless  ages,  called  by  divine  voices  to  a  destiny 
grander  and  brighter  than  we  can  conceive,  and  moving  always,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  along  lines  of  beneficent  achievement  whose 
constant  aims  and  ultimate  ends  are  peace  and  righteousness. 

I  think  John  Hay  would  not  greatly  desire  that  statues 
and  columns  be  erected  in  his  memory;  that  he  sought  for  no 
monument  other  than  the  perpetual  existence  of  the  Republic 
into  whose  structure  he  had  wrought  his  life.  But  we  may  be 
sure  that  this  memorial,  dedicated  to  the  art  of  letters,  in 
which  he  found  his  solace  and  refuge  from  the  harsh  storms 
of  life,  standing  amid  the  scenes  that  were  dear  to  his 
memories  of  youth,  inscribed  with  his  name  by  the  proud 
affection  of  his  Alma  Mater,  would  be  inexpressibly  grateful 
to  his  heart. 


GROVER  CLEVELAND 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS  AT  THE  COLLEGE  OF  THE   CITY  OF 
NEW  YORK,  MARCH  18,  1909 

Grover  Cleveland  was  elected  governor  of  New  York  in  1882,  and  was  elected  the 
twenty-second  President  of  the  United  States  in  1884.  Defeated  for  reelection  in 
1888,  he  was  again  elected  President  in  1892.  At  the  close  of  his  term  of  office,  he 
removed  to  Princeton,  N.  J.,  where  he  delivered  an  annual  series  of  lectures  on  public 
affairs  before  the  University,  and  where  he  died  June  24,  1908. 

At  the  memorial  exercises,  held  in  New  York  City,  Mr.  Root  said: 

IT  is  a  grateful  duty  to  pay  public  honor  to  Mr.  Cleveland 
because  he  was  our  friend  and  because  all  of  us  are  his 
debtors  for  his  inestimable  service  to  our  country. 

It  is  not  merely  a  duty  to  Mr.  Cleveland's  memory;  it  is 
an  opportunity  for  Americans  to  signalize  their  capacity  to 
appreciate  such  a  man  as  he  was. 

A  nation  may  be  known  by  the  men  it  honors.  All  the  world 
honors  genius;  all  the  world  is  dazzled  by  military  glory; 
all  the  world  is  swayed  by  power  of  leadership  over  masses 
of  men;  all  the  world  extols  great  deeds  done;  but  the 
best  evidence  of  a  nation's  greatness,  the  best  augury  of  its 
power  to  rise  to  higher  levels  of  national  life,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  exhibition  of  general  and  heartfelt  appreciation  of  a 
noble  character.  It  is  to  the  honor  of  America  that  the 
deepest,  the  most  lasting  impressions  from  the  time  of  Wash- 
ington and  of  Lincoln,  are  not  so  much  what  they  did  but 
what  they  were.  Against  the  background  of  their  arduous 
labors  stand  out  the  men  themselves;  —  the  fortitude  in 
adversity,  the  long-suffering  patience,  the  indomitable  will, 
the  strength,  the  courage,  the  great-heartedness,  the  unsel- 
fishness, the  devotion.  The  powerful  influence  of  a  strong  and 
noble  character  made  manifest  in  high  station,  is  the  chief 

105 


106  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

legacy  of  Grover  Cleveland  to  his  countrymen;  and  it  can 
never  be  lost,  for  that  influence  has  greatly  moved  his  genera- 
tion to  higher  conceptions  of  civic  duty  and  independent 
manhood  and  public  righteousness.  Students  of  political 
history  will  remember  the  many  good  things  he  did;  but  all 
America  has  passed  a  step  nearer  to  its  ideals  because  of 
what  he  was. 

Grover  Cleveland  did  not  rise  conspicuously  above  the 
men  of  his  time  in  intellectual  power.  His  mind  gave  forth 
none  of  those  emanations  of  genius  which  the  world  admires 
at  a  distance  and  which  make  their  way  into  the  common 
apprehension  only  in  after  years.  One  of  the  elements  of  his 
strength  was  that  his  mind  worked  as  the  minds  of  most 
Americans  work,  only  more  powerfully  and  conclusively 
than  most  minds. 

He  spoke  and  wrote  distinctly  truths  that  Americans  gen- 
erally were  conscious  of  thinking  vaguely.  His  word,  backed 
by  his  great  authority,  and  still  more  potently  backed  by  the 
example  of  his  life,  brought  realization  of  great  saving  com- 
mon truths  that  were  being  forgotten. 

He  was  a  man  of  convictions,  —  not  extemporized  for  the 
moment  or  for  a  purpose,  but  real,  vital  and  urgent.  He 
thought  them  out  and  felt  them  through  and  through.  His 
judgments  were  not  the  cock-sure  opinions  of  ignorant  con- 
ceit, but  the  result  of  mature  deliberation.  He  gave  enormous 
industry  and  pains  to  the  processes  by  which  he  reached 
them.  He  brought  to  his  work  strong,  practical  common 
sense,  a  just  and  well-balanced  mind,  a  temperament  of  sus- 
tained vigor  and  without  malice,  sincerity  of  purpose,  and 
as  time  went  on,  ever  increasing  wisdom  and  insight  into 
life.  His  convictions  once  settled,  he  was  absolutely  immov- 
able in  them.  Neither  political  expediency  nor  personal 
fortunes  produced  the  slightest  effect  upon  his  active  adher- 
ence to  them. 


GROVER  CLEVELAND  107 

He  believed  the  Silver  Purchase  Act  was  ruinous  to  the 
country,  and  he  forced  its  repeal  while  the  politicians  of  the 
country,  for  the  most  part,  were  cautiously  sounding  public 
sentiment.  He  considered  that  the  attitude  of  Great  Britain 
in  the  Venezuela  Boundary  controversy  put  at  issue  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  essential  to  our  nation's  safety,  and  he 
unhesitatingly  risked  the  wreck  of  his  Administration  and  a 
disastrous  war  in  uncompromising  committal  to  the  applica- 
tion of  the  traditional  American  policy  at  all  hazards,  to  that 
concrete  case. 

He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  our  protective  policy  was 
wrong  and  he  risked  and  lost  his  reelection  by  the  tariff 
message  at  the  close  of  his  first  Administration.  He  was 
warned  of  the  result  by  the  advisers  whom  he  trusted  most, 
but  that  produced  no  effect  whatever  upon  him. 

Whether  one  agrees  with  his  views  or  not,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  find  inspiration  in  the  example  of  the  man  who  would 
not  wait  for  a  safe  reelection  to  do  what  he  believed  to  be 
right.  With  high  and  unquestioning  courage  he  stood  always 
for  what  he  believed  to  be  just  and  honest  and  best  for  his 
country.  With  unconcealed  scorn  and  wrath,  he  stood  against 
all  sham  and  chicanery.  He  was  not  swayed  by  personal 
ambition  or  by  selfishness.  He  thought  always  of  his  work 
and  not  of  himself. 

He  was  simple  and  unostentatious  in  his  living.  He  had 
no  thirst  for  riches.  He  was  sincere  and  outspoken  without 
the  craft  of  the  time-server  or  the  false  pretense  of  the  dema- 
gogue. He  was  kindly  and  affectionate,  —  a  good  husband 
and  father  and  friend  and  neighbor. 

He  remembered  always  with  touching  interest  the  undis- 
tinguished companions  and  scenes  of  his  youth.  Great 
station  raised  no  barriers  about  his  heart.  He  was  loyal  to 
his  friends  and  to  his  ideals  and  to  every  cause  in  which  he 
had  enlisted. 


108  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  he  was  raised  to  power,  in 
office  and  out  of  office,  he  stood  conspicuous  before  the  world, 
a  great  figure  of  exalted  citizenship  and  evidence  to  all  the 
young  men  of  America  that  in  this  free  republic  the  greatest 
success,  high  station,  power,  fame,  can  be  won  with  truth, 
honor  and  self-respect. 

To  honor  him  is  to  be  lifted  up  in  spirit;  to  remember  him 
is  to  be  grateful  for  our  country's  happy  fortune  and  to  be 
possessed  of  a  cheerful  hope  for  the  future  of  a  people  that 
can  bring  forth  such  sons. 


CHESTER  ALAN  ARTHUR 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  A  STATUE  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR 
IN  MADISON  SQUARE,  NEW  YORK,  JUNE  13,  1899 

THE  committee  of  which  Mr.  Stewart  is  chairman  has 
charged  me  with  the  duty  of  formally  presenting  to  the 
city  of  New  York  the  statue  of  Chester  Alan  Arthur,  the 
twenty-first  President  of  the  United  States,  now  about  to 
be  unveiled. 

The  statue  is  the  result  of  the  contributions  of  President 
Arthur's  personal  associates  and  friends  here  in  his  home, 
who  knew  him  as  he  was,  and  admired  and  loved  him  long 
before  the  world  knew  him,  and  who  found  in  the  universal 
esteem  and  admiration  accorded  to  him  by  the  whole  people 
in  his  later  years,  not  a  revelation,  but  a  recognition  of  his 
character  and  qualities.  This  memorial  of  our  old  fellow- 
townsman  is  to  stand  appropriately  in  the  New  York  of 
Arthur's  day,  in  the  square  around  which  centered  so  much 
of  the  city's  activity  in  his  time,  in  front  of  the  old  club 
house  of  the  Union  League,  of  which  he  was  long  an  active, 
and  at  the  last  an  honorary  member,  and  near  the  familiar 
pathway  along  which  so  many  of  us  have  passed  with  him  on 
his  way  to  and  from  his  Lexington  Avenue  home. 

The  personal  relations  which  have  prompted  this  expres- 
sion of  affection  and  esteem  are  rapidly  lapsing  into  oblivion. 
The  men  and  women  who  knew  him,  who  felt  the  direct  influ- 
ence of  his  clear  and  bright  intelligence,  his  commanding 
character,  the  sweetness  and  gentleness  of  his  disposition, 
the  rich  stores  of  his  cultivated  mind,  the  grace  and  charm  of 
his  courtesy,  his  grave  and  simple  dignity,  and  his  loyal  and 
steadfast  friendship,  are  passing  swiftly  away.    In  but  a  few 

109 


110  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

years  more  the  joy  he  gave  in  living,  the  sharp  sorrow  of  his 
untimely  death,  the  treasured  memories  of  his  association 
and  his  friendship,  will  exist  no  longer  in  any  human  heart. 
He  will  be  but  a  name  on  a  page  of  American  history,  and  his 
personality,  potent  as  it  was  in  life,  living  as  it  is  still  in  our 
hearts,  will  have  ceased  from  its  separate  existence,  and  live 
only  in  the  undistinguished  immortality  of  effect  in  the  life 
of  the  race.  Were  this  all  the  story  his  memory  might  well 
be  left  to  die  with  the  dying.  But  there  remains  a  record  of 
national  safety,  achieved  in  a  time  of  imminent  peril  by  his 
noble  qualities,  his  hard  endurance,  his  self-sacrifice  and 
patriotism;  and  it  is  right  that  this  record  of  patriotic  service 
should  be  preserved  and  continually  recalled  to  the  minds  of 
generations  to  come  by  this  statue  of  imperishable  bronze 
standing  upon  the  public  land  of  the  great  city  which  gave 
him  to  the  nation. 

No  greater  peril  ever  menaced  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  than  that  which  confronted  the 
American  people  when  President  Garfield  fell  by  the  hand  of 
Guiteau  on  July  2,  1881.  External  assaults  consolidate  a 
people  and  stimulate  their  loyalty  to  their  institutions.  But 
when  Garfield  fell  the  danger  came  from  within.  The  fac- 
tional strife  within  the  dominant  party  which  resulted  in  the 
nomination  of  President  Garfield  had  been  of  unprecedented 
bitterness.  Vice-President  Arthur  had  been  selected  from 
the  defeated  faction.  He  was  one  of  its  most  conspicuous 
and  active  leaders.  Stilled  for  a  time  during  the  canvass,  the 
controversy  was  resumed  with  renewed  vigor  and  more 
violent  feelings  in  the  early  days  of  the  new  Administration. 
It  extended  through  every  state  and  city  and  hamlet.  Sud- 
denly the  adherents  of  the  murdered  President  saw  the 
powers  of  government  about  to  be  transferred  to  the  leader  of 
their  defeated  adversaries,  and  that  transfer  effected  by  the 
act  of  an  assassin.    Many  of  them  could  not  instantly  accept 


CHESTER  ALAN  ARTHUR  111 

the  truth  that  it  was  the  act  solely  of  a  half-crazed  and  dis- 
appointed seeker  for  office;  many  of  them  questioned 
whether  the  men  who  were  to  profit  by  the  act  were  not  the 
instigators  of  it.  It  seemed  beyond  endurance  that  Garfield's 
enemies  should  profit  by  his  death.  Dark  suspicions  and 
angry  threatenings  filled  the  public  mind,  and  for  the 
moment  there  was  doubt  —  grave  doubt  —  and  imminent 
peril  that  the  orderly  succession  of  power  under  the  Constitu- 
tion might  not  take  its  peaceful  course.  Under  such  con- 
ditions, acting  upon  the  telegraphed  request  of  the  Cabinet, 
in  order  that  the  first  step  might  be  safely  passed,  Arthur 
took  the  oath  of  office  at  his  home  in  Lexington  Avenue  at 
midnight  on  the  night  when  Garfield  died,  and  entered  upon 
the  solemn  duties  of  the  Presidency.  Surely  no  more  lonely 
and  pathetic  figure  was  ever  seen  assuming  the  powers  of 
government.  He  had  no  people  behind  him,  for  Garfield,  not 
he,  was  the  people's  choice;  he  had  no  party  behind  him,  for 
the  dominant  faction  of  his  party  hated  his  name  —  were 
enraged  by  his  advancement,  and  distrusted  his  motives. 
He  had  not  even  his  own  faction  behind  him,  for  he  already 
knew  that  the  just  discharge  of  his  duties  would  not  accord 
with  the  ardent  desires  of  their  partisanship,  and  that  dis- 
appointment and  estrangement  lay  before  him  there.  He 
was  alone.  He  was  bowed  down  by  the  weight  of  fearful 
responsibility  and  crushed  to  the  earth  by  the  feeling,  exag- 
gerated but  not  unfounded,  that  he  took  up  his  heavy  burden 
surrounded  by  dislike,  suspicion,  distrust  and  condemnation 
as  an  enemy  of  the  martyred  Garfield  and  the  beneficiary  of 
his  murder.  Deep  and  settled  melancholy  possessed  him; 
almost  despair  overwhelmed  him.  He  went  to  power  walking 
through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  and  ascended  the 
steps  of  a  throne  as  one  who  is  accused  goes  to  his  trial. 

Then  came  the  revelation  to  the  people  of  America  that  our 
ever-fortunate  republic  had  again  found  the  man  for  the 


112  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

hour.  His  actions  were  informed  and  guided  by  absolute 
self-devotion  to  the  loftiest  conception  of  his  great  office. 
The  solid  substance  of  character  inherited  from  his  Scotch 
ancestry  and  his  Vermont  birthplace,  and  developed  by  the 
typical  American  training  of  the  poor  clergyman's  son  carv- 
ing out  his  own  fortune  without  any  resources  except  those 
which  rested  within  himself,  made  him  master  of  himself  and 
dependent  only  upon  the  dictates  of  his  own  judgment  and 
his  own  conscience.  His  skill  as  a  politician  in  the  best  sense, 
and  his  experience  as  an  administrator,  made  him  a  judge  of 
men  and  their  motives,  and  enabled  him  to  shun  the  pitfalls 
which  encompass  the  feet  of  an  unwary  executive.  His 
instinctive  sympathy  and  chivalric  regard  for  the  memory 
and  the  purposes  of  the  lamented  Garfield  disarmed  resent- 
ment. The  dignified  courtesy  of  his  manners  and  the  con- 
siderate sincerity  of  his  speech  conciliated  the  friendship 
even  of  his  enemies.  The  extremists  of  his  own  party  faction 
found  that  their  demands  for  the  fruits  of  revolution  were 
addressed  to  one  no  longer  a  leader  of  a  faction,  but  the 
President  of  the  whole  people,  conscious  of  all  his  obligations, 
and  determined  to  execute  the  people's  will.  The  coldness, 
the  alienation  of  old  allies,  the  reproaches  which  they  visited 
upon  him,  he  suffered  in  silence  and  in  sorrow,  but  with 
unchanged  and  steadfast  determination.  He  was  wise  in 
statesmanship  and  firm  and  effective  in  administration. 
Honesty  in  national  finance,  purity  and  effectiveness  in  the 
civil  service,  the  promotion  of  commerce,  the  re-creation  of 
the  American  navy,  reconciliation  between  North  and  South, 
and  honorable  friendship  with  foreign  nations,  received  his 
active  support.  Good  causes  found  in  him  a  friend,  and  bad 
measures  met  in  him  an  unyielding  opponent. 

The  genuineness  of  his  patriotism,  the  integrity  of  his  pur- 
pose and  the  wisdom  of  his  conduct,  changed  general  distrust 
to  universal  confidence,  reestablished  popular  belief  in  the 


CHESTER  ALAN  ARTHUR         113 

adequacy  of  our  constitutional  system  in  all  emergencies,  and 
restored  an  abiding  trust  in  the  perpetuity  of  our  govern- 
ment. He  himself  greatly  aided  to  make  true  the  memorable 
words  of  his  first  inaugural:  "  Men  may  die,  but  the  fabrics 
of  our  free  institutions  remain  unshaken." 

The  strain  of  that  terrible  ordeal  and  the  concentrated  and 
unremitting  effort  of  those  burdened  years  exhausted  the 
vital  forces  of  his  frame  and  brought  him  to  the  grave  in  the 
meridian  of  his  days.  He  gave  his  life  to  his  country  as  truly 
as  one  who  dies  from  wounds  or  disease  in  war. 

With  proud  and  sensitive  reticence  he  had  suffered  much 
from  calumny.  Its  completest  refutation  was  the  demonstra- 
tion of  what  he  was.  And  he  was  always  the  same.  The 
noble  form  of  which  all  America  was  proud  as  it  bore  with 
dignity  and  flawless  honor  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  great- 
est of  republics  was  none  other  than  the  simple  and  true 
American  gentleman  who  walked  with  us  among  our  homes 
and  to  whose  memory  we  offer  this  poor  tribute. 


WILLIAM  TECUMSEH  SHERMAN 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF 

ST.  GAUDENS'  STATUE  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  IN 

NEW  YORK,  MAY  30,  1903 

OF  all  the  statues  with  which  the  affection  of  friends  and 
the  admiration  of  contemporaries  are  adorning  or  dis- 
figuring the  public  places  of  the  modern  world,  few  will  carry 
any  personal  meaning  to  future  generations,  or  serve  to  per- 
petuate the  memory  of  the  men  whom  they  are  designed  to 
honor.  The  little  great  men  of  the  hour  pass  across  the  stage 
of  the  world's  life  with  their  generations,  and  are  forgotten. 
Neither  granite  shaft  nor  monumental  bronze  can  confer 
upon  them  immortality,  or  rescue  them  from  the  individual 
oblivion  which  merges  their  achievements  and  their  sacrifices 
into  the  general  progress  of  the  nation  and  the  race. 

Rarely,  as  the  centuries  pass,  some  great  national  crisis, 
with  the  inspiration  of  struggle  and  the  test  of  requirements 
beyond  the  capacity  of  common  men,  sifts  the  material  of  a 
nation,  and  reveals  a  man  equal  to  a  great  occasion;  whose 
deeds  link  his  name  forever  with  the  decisive  events  which 
determine  the  world's  progress,  render  his  existence  a  fact  of 
historic  significance,  and  make  what  he  was,  a  part  of  the 
common  and  familiar  knowledge  of  mankind.  Such  a  crisis 
was  the  American  war  for  the  Union.  Such  a  man  was 
William  Tecumseh  Sherman.  The  tremendous  consequence 
to  mankind  of  the  decision  whether  America  was  to  be  one 
nation  or  a  group  of  small  and  discordant  states,  dimly 
foreseen  by  the  men  of  half  a  century  ago,  even  now  only 
begins  to  be  realized  by  the  world,  which  sees  looming  large 
in  the  horizon  of  the  future  the  immeasurable  possibilities 
for  good  or  evil  in  hundreds  of  millions  of  people,  free,  inde- 


116  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

pendent,  self-governing,  with  limitless  resources,  with  vital 
force  and  energy  never  surpassed,  and  united  under  one 
government  by  common  institutions,  a  common  sentiment  of 
nationality,  and  general  loyalty  to  the  same  ideals. 

The  part  that  Sherman  played  in  that  great  struggle  was 
not  merely  courageous,  loyal,  devoted,  brilliant.  It  was 
essentially  decisive.  Erase  it  from  the  pages  of  history  and 
no  human  mind  can  divine  how  the  blanks  would  have  been 
filled.  No  one  will  dare  to  say  another  could  have  done 
what  Sherman  did.  Shiloh  and  Corinth  and  Vicksburg  and 
Chattanooga  and  Missionary  Ridge  crowned  him  with 
laurels.  The  desperate  and  resourceful  campaign  which 
ended  in  the  capture  of  Atlanta  established  his  place  in  his- 
tory as  a  great  commander.  The  march  from  Atlanta  to  the 
sea,  and  still  on  from  Savannah  northward  through  the 
Carolinas,  to  Raleigh  and  the  surrender  of  Johnston,  ranks 
among  the  great  and  impressive  military  events  of  history. 
But  more  than  all  these,  in  the  general  maintenance  and  con- 
duct of  the  war,  the  powerful  influence  of  his  military  genius, 
the  strong  support  of  his  indomitable  will,  the  forward 
impulse  of  his  tremendous  energy,  the  singular  nobility  of  his 
unselfish  character,  which,  meeting  like  characteristics  in 
Grant,  enabled  them  to  work  together  like  brothers;  all 
these  made  the  personality  of  Sherman  an  essentially  decisive 
part  of  the  great  consummation  which  determined  that 
America  was  to  be  free  and  united.  We  cannot  add  to  his 
fame;  we  cannot  contribute  to  his  immortality.  The  statue 
we  raise  today  can  but  point  future  generations  to  the  pages 
of  history  where  his  name  and  deeds  are  imperishably 
recorded.  Neither  praise  can  set  up  nor  detraction  pull  down 
the  immortals  in  that  Valhalla  of  the  truly  great  where  he 
has  taken  his  eternal  place. 

But  we  who  knew  him  living  can  record  our  admiration 
and  personal  affection.    We  can  tell  those  who  come  after  us 


WILLIAM  TECUMSEH  SHERMAN  117 

that  not  only  was  Sherman  great  but  his  people  loved  him. 
This  stern  and  relentless  master  of  horrid  war  had  a  heart  as 
gentle  and  as  tender  as  a  woman's.  The  veterans  who  had 
served  under  his  command  came  to  him  in  after  years  as  to  a 
father,  to  find  always  open  his  sympathy  and  his  purse.  His 
magnanimous  nature  accorded  a  generous  meed  of  praise  to 
every  degree  of  merit  exhibited  by  others  associated  in  his 
great  undertakings.  He  fought,  not  urged  by  ambition  or 
for  fame  or  for  fortune,  but  inspired  by  loyalty  and  love  of 
country.  Before  Sumter  was  fired  upon  he  declared:  "  On 
no  earthly  account  will  I  do  any  act  or  think  any  thought 
hostile  to  or  in  defiance  of  the  old  Government  of  the  United 
States."  And  when  the  great  struggle  was  ended  he  declared : 
"War's  legitimate  object  is  more  perfect  peace",  and  turned 
with  alacrity  and  gladness  to  the  path  of  mercy  and  concilia- 
tion. He  was  a  disciplinarian  without  being  a  martinet,  and 
his  broad  sympathies  with  all  his  countrymen  made  him  the 
ideal  commander  of  volunteer  soldiers.  In  peace  he  was  con- 
stantly solicitous  for  the  adoption  of  measures  for  the  future 
welfare  and  greatness  of  his  country.  He  urged  on  to  success 
the  building  of  the  Pacific  roads  which  he  foresaw  would 
pacify  and  civilize  the  plains  and  bind  together  our  widely 
separated  seaboards.  He  founded  the  Leavenworth  School 
of  Military  Instruction,  and  entered  actively  into  the  exe- 
cution of  broad  and  far-seeing  plans  for  utilizing  the  lessons 
of  the  Civil  War  and  improving  the  military  system  of  the 
country,  until  checked  and  made  powerless  by  a  vicious 
organization  which  now  in  this  year  we  are  happily  bring- 
ing to  an  end.  Every  good  and  noble  cause  found  in  him 
encouragement  and  support.  The  simplicity  and  directness 
of  his  mind  found  a  counterpart  in  the  fearless  frankness 
of  his  expression.  His  conversation  and  his  life  taught 
always  the  lessons  of  courage,  of  hope,  of  cheerfulness,  and 
of  light.    He  was  free  from  all  envy  and  uncharitableness, 


118  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

broad-minded,  loyal  and  generous  friend,  good  and  patriotic 
citizen,  honorable  gentleman.  Again  and  again  he  put  the 
Presidency  away  from  him,  and  chose  rather  the  indepen- 
dence and  dignity  of  citizenship  than  the  honors  of  high  office 
which  could  add  nothing  to  his  laurels. 

Many  of  us  remember  the  charm  and  beauty  of  his  declin- 
ing years;  when  he  had  come  to  the  time  when  men  begin  to 
live  over  in  memory  the  stirring  scenes  of  their  youth;  when 
he  was  wont  to  seek  a  familiar  corner  in  the  old  club-house 
below  us  on  this  avenue  —  the  club  formed  to  support  him 
in  the  great  conflict  —  and  there  to  discourse  with  his  friends, 
with  quaint  wisdom  and  genial  humor  and  many  a  brilliant 
flash  of  insight,  upon  the  days  that  were  passed.  Enjoying 
life  to  the  end,  amid  universal  respect  and  affection,  secure, 
in  the  consciousness  of  great  deeds  done,  he  rested  here  in 
peaceful  and  honored  age.  It  is  a  fitting  and  a  happy  thing 
that  here,  too,  the  genius  of  the  great  sculptor  who  owns  this 
city  as  his  home,  should  make  imperishable  by  his  art 
this  silent  witness  to  the  honor  that  we  and  our  children  shall 
ever  pay  to  Sherman,  the  soldier,  the  patriot,  and  the  friend. 


THE  GREAT  RECONCILIATION 

ADDRESS  AT  A  REUNION  OF  THE  UNION  AND  CONFEDERATE 

VETERANS    WHO    FOUGHT    AT    FORT    FISHER 

UTICA,  NEW  YORK,  SEPTEMBER  9,  1909 

IT  is  a  great  pleasure  to  join  with  my  friends  and  neighbors 
of  Oneida  County  in  welcoming  to  our  beautiful  city  our 
friends,  the  enemies  of  the  past,  the  far  distant  but  never  to 
be  forgotten  past.  I  join  my  voice  to  those  of  their  old  com- 
rades of  the  Northern  forces  with  a  welcome  hearty  and  sin- 
cere, in  behalf  of  all  our  people  and  in  behalf  of  many  who 
dwell  in  memory  only;  for  under  the  magnetic  influence  of 
the  strong  feeling  with  which  these  veterans  live  over  the 
battles  of  their  youth,  my  mind  has  been  harking  back  to  the 
memories  of  my  boyhood,  when  the  youth  of  Oneida  County 
were  gathering  for  their  march  to  the  front  of  the  great  war. 
I  remember  many  a  bright  and  beautiful  boy,  I  remember 
how  broken-hearted  I  was  that  I  was  deemed  too  young  and 
weak  a  stripling  to  be  of  use.  I  remember  how  many  a  noble 
life  was  ended,  how  many  a  memory  is  left  alone  to  tell  of  the 
forms  sleeping  beneath  the  soil  of  North  Carolina,  leaving 
the  desolate  home  among  these  hillsides.  I  remember  the 
long  years  in  which  the  people  of  the  North  and  the  South 
learned  the  lesson  of  patience  under  affliction,  of  fortitude, 
of  capacity  for  sacrifice,  of  love  of  country.  The  spirit  of 
North  and  South  was  raised  to  a  purer  and  a  nobler  manhood 
and  a  greater  capacity  to  make  our  country  take  its  true 
place  in  the  vanguard  and  the  march  of  liberty  and  justice 
along  the  pathway  of  civilization. 

In  the  names  of  those  who  fought  and  ended  their  lives,  I 
bid  you  welcome,  friends  of  the  South.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
have  fought  in  a  great  war.    It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  fought 

119 


120  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

in  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of  history.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
be  a  part  of  the  structure  of  a  great  and  noble  land;  to  have 
fought,  not  as  mercenaries  for  pay;  not  to  promote  some 
individual  ambition;  not  for  plunder;  but  to  have  fought  for 
a  cause  in  which  one  believes,  for  a  cause  that  lifts  up  the 
soul  above  all  selfishness  and  littleness,  above  the  small  things 
of  life,  and  makes  over  manhood  to  last  for  a  lifetime. 

Happy  men  you  should  be  to  have  crowning  your  lives  this 
noble  wreath  of  having  made  the  sacrifice  of  your  youth  for 
a  great  cause  in  which  you  believe.  Happy  men  you  should 
be  to  feel,  to  know  and  to  be  able  to  see  with  your  own  eyes 
the  great  country  that  has  risen  upon  the  foundation  of  that 
character;  not  upon  the  foundation  of  what  you  won  or  lost; 
not  upon  the  foundation  of  any  town  taken  or  stricken  field 
occupied;  but  upon  the  foundation  of  that  character  that 
was  built  up  in  those  days  of  struggle  and  of  sacrifice.  You 
are  doing,  my  friends,  what  your  children  could  not  do,  for 
if  you  had  gone  to  your  graves  cherishing  the  bitterness  of 
conflict,  their  filial  piety  would  have  led  them  to  cherish  the 
same  bitter  and  resentful  feeling  for  generation  after  genera- 
tion. You  alone,  you  who  fought,  you  who  passed  the  weary 
days  in  the  trenches,  you  who  had  the  supreme  exultation  of 
life  at  stake,  you  alone  can  render  that  supreme  sacrifice  to 
your  country  of  a  gentle  and  kindly  spirit,  receiving  your 
former  enemies  to  renewed  friendship  and  binding  together 
all  parts  of  the  country  for  which  you  both  fought.  You  are 
doing  something  far  more  unexampled  than  any  battle  that 
you  won.  You  are  not  merely  illustrating  that  nobility  of 
character  that  came  from  your  birth  and  your  training,  but 
you  are  illustrating  the  capacity  for  self-government  that 
makes  America  what  it  is. 

For  countless  generations  men  have  fought  and  fought 
bravely.  The  whole  earth  is  covered  with  battlefields  in 
which  men  have  given  up  their  lives  for  great  causes  and  little 


THE  GREAT  RECONCILIATION  121 

ones  and  no  causes  at  all.  Courage  is  the  rule  of  mankind. 
You  were  brave.  Of  course  you  were  brave,  for  you  came 
from  stocks  that  for  countless  generations  had  fought  for 
their  rights;  but  other  nations  have  been  brave  and  the 
lesson  of  history  is  that  no  great  nation  is  made  and  exists  by 
courage  alone.  It  is  only  through  the  possession  of  moral 
qualities  that  lift  men  above  littleness  and  bitterness  and 
jealousy  and  envy  and  pettiness  and  malice,  in  peace  as  in 
war,  that  a  nation  can  be  great.  It  is  only  by  the  power  of 
kindly  and  considerate  judgment;  it  is  only  by  the  quality 
of  consideration  and  friendship;  it  is  only  by  the  power  of 
brotherhood,  that  a  nation  can  govern  itself  and  be  great. 
And  you  are  not  only  illustrating  that  capacity  for  mutual 
consideration  and  kindliness  that  is  necessary  to  patriotism 
and  to  the  greatness  of  a  nation,  but  you  are  teaching  it  to  all 
of  us.  In  the  memory  of  your  great  days  of  youth,  of  your 
sacrifices,  of  the  great  issues  of  that  time,  how  small  seem  the 
little  questions  about  which  we  sometimes  work  so  hard  and 
how  clear  it  seems  that  the  only  real  question  upon  which 
the  fate  of  the  nation  depends,  is  its  capacity  to  deal  with  all 
questions  in  the  right  spirit  of  mutual  consideration. 

Happy  men  you  should  be  to  have  played  your  part  like 
men,  both  in  the  great  fight  and  in  the  great  reconciliation, 
which  no  nation  on  earth  ever  equaled,  ever  anywhere  or  in 
any  age,  in  the  great  demonstration  of  love  for  country,  of 
capacity  for  brotherhood  among  countrymen.  And  happy 
you  should  be  to  see  through  these  two  qualities  of  courage 
and  fortitude  and  of  capacity  for  kindly  consideration  and 
judgment,  your  country  so  great,  so  noble,  doing  so  great  a 
work,  in  the  forefront  of  the  struggle  for  liberty  and  justice 
and  peace  throughout  the  world,  a  work  that  more  than 
repays  to  mankind  all  the  blood  that  was  shed,  all  the  labors, 
all  the  sacrifices  of  your  youth,  and  all  the  devotion  of  your 
manhood  to  our  beloved  land. 


THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR  AT  A  MEETING  OF  THE 

CLUB  TO  CELEBRATE  ITS  FORTDZTH  ANNIVERSARY 

FEBRUARY  6,  1903 

IT  is  worth  while  coming  from  Washington,  or  even  Cali- 
fornia, or  the  Philippines,  to  receive  such  a  welcome.  I 
will  speak  tonight  for  the  younger  members  of  the  club. 
Having  been  a  member  but  thirty-four  years,  I  look  up  with 
reverence  to  these  old  gentlemen. 

Length  of  life  is  little,  but  to  have  been  a  part  of  great 
affairs,  to  have  done  something  in  this  world  that  will  live, 
to  have  woven  a  thread  into  the  fabric  that  is  to  last  for  ages 
—  that  is  life,  that  is  to  have  lived,  though  length  of  days 
be  short;  and  that,  old  friends,  you  did.  We  are  grateful  to 
you  and  we  honor  you  for  the  opportunity  which  you  so 
nobly  seized  and  upon  which  you  built  so  well. 

Happy  men,  the  men  of  '61  to  '65,  to  live  to  see  the  country 
they  saved  grown  so  great,  not  merely  in  material  things,  in 
manufactories,  in  railroads,  in  steamships,  and  in  marble 
buildings,  but  so  great  in  all  that  dignifies  and  ennobles 
humanity. 

Happy  men,  to  see  the  great  war,  which  you  helped  so 
much  to  nerve  our  people  to  maintain  for  union  and  liberty, 
ended,  and  the  spectacle  of  noblest  manhood  exhibited  to  the 
world  by  two  sections  that  had  fought  so  bitterly,  coming 
now  together,  with  the  kindliness  of  true  American  citizen- 
ship, and  again  together  upholding  the  flag  that  stands  for 
the  liberty  of  all;  to  see  the  curse  of  slavery  removed  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  made  true  at  last  for  all  our 
people;  to  see  the  reflex  action  of  our  institutions  upon 
Europe,  gradually  changing  the  structure  of  governments 

123 


124  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

and  lifting  up  across  the  sea  the  common  people  of  all  the 
countries  of  the  world  towards  the  dignity  of  manhood  and 
their  rightful  participation  in  the  fruits  of  the  earth;  to  see, 
what  is  true,  that  year  by  year  coming  out  of  the  crucible  of 
trial  our  public  service  has  grown  stronger,  and  purer,  and 
better  in  its  integrity  and  its  devotion  to  public  interests  than 
ever  before  in  all  our  history;  and  to  see  our  nation,  grown  so 
great  and  strong,  still  maintaining  the  principles  of  liberty 
and  justice,  and  stretching  out  its  hands  over  the  weak 
people  of  the  earth  and  saying  to  the  oppressors,  "  Hold." 

Happy  men,  to  come  out  of  that  time  of  doubt  and  trial 
and  see  all  this.  But  the  end  is  not  yet.  Your  work  was  but 
little  if  you  left  none  behind  you  to  take  it  up.  The  old  and 
trite  saying,  "  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty  ",  holds 
a  broader  and  a  greater  truth,  "  Eternal  good  citizenship  is 
the  price  of  good  government."  There  yet  remain  and  there 
will  ever  come  in  unending  succession  problems,  difficulties, 
doubts,  struggles,  on  which  the  safety  of  our  institutions  will 
depend.  There  are  today  problems  almost  immeasurable 
which  hold  within  them  the  possibilities  of  evil  for  our  coun- 
try, calling  for  the  best  citizenship,  the  most  devout  patriot- 
ism, and  the  hardest  fiber.    Let  me  mention  two  or  three. 

One  is  the  tendency — growing,  I  fear — to  division  between 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  under  which  wealth  tends  constantly 
to  undue  control  over  legislation,  and  poverty  to  stir  up  a 
war  of  classes  based  upon  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  rich. 
The  very  results  of  our  prosperity  tend  to  increase  this  evil, 
and  every  good  citizen  should  set  his  face  against  it  and  seek 
to  make  it  certain  that  never  in  this  free  land  shall  we  have  a 
war  of  classes. 

Another  thing,  which  is  fraught  with  the  most  fatal  con- 
sequences, if  it  proceeds,  is  the  tendency  to  check  individual 
enterprise  and  development.  Individual  opportunity,  the 
chance  that  every  poor  boy  has  to  exercise  the  talents  that 


THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB  125 

God  has  given  him  and  to  rise  as  high  as  man  can  go  by  his 
brain,  by  his  industry,  by  his  persistency,  and  by  his  courage, 
is  the  very  foundation  of  American  liberty.  Yet  many  of  the 
labor  organizations  in  this  country  are  including  in  their 
rules  provisions  against  the  better  man  doing  more  work, 
earning  more  wages  than  the  man  less  capable,  and  seeking 
to  hold  down  industry,  activity,  and  ambition  to  the  level  of 
sloth,  of  incompetency,  of  stupidity.  I  make  no  war  against 
labor  organizations;  I  believe  in  them.  I  believe  that  in  the 
great  struggle  for  a  fair  division  of  the  increased  wealth  of 
mankind  that  comes  from  the  enormous  increase  of  the  pro- 
ductive power  of  mankind  through  invention  and  discovery, 
the  laborer  is  bound  to  organize  and  is  entitled  to  organize, 
and  I  am  glad  to  see  him  organize  and  get  his  own.  But  we 
all  must  set  our  faces  against  the  tendency  to  say  to  any 
boy,  "  You  shall  not  do  the  best  you  can." 

A  third  thing  is  one  with  which  this  club  may  well  be  con- 
cerned. Our  chairman  has  referred  to  the  march  of  the  negro 
regiments  down  Broadway.  Within  two  years  after  the 
foundation  of  this  club  the  nation,  by  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  provided  that  slavery 
should  not  exist  in  the  United  States,  or  in  any  territory 
under  its  jurisdiction.  Within  five  years,  by  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  the  nation  declared  that  all  men  born  or 
naturalized  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States  should 
be  citizens.  Within  seven  years,  by  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment, the  nation  declared  that  no  one  should  be  deprived  of 
his  right  to  vote  by  reason  of  his  race,  color,  or  previous  con- 
dition of  servitude.  Those  three  amendments  embodied  the 
scheme  adopted  by  the  thoughtful  men  of  the  time  for 
the  uplifting  of  those  who  had  been  held  in  slavery  from  the 
beginning  of  our  history. 

You  remember  how  difficult  the  question  was,  What  was 
to  be  done  with  the  poor  black  man  held  all  his  life  a  slave 


126  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

and  now  free  ?  The  answer,  found  in  these  amendments, 
was,  Give  him  citizenship,  give  him  suffrage,  give  him  equal 
rights,  and  he  will  rise. 

I  fear  we  are  compelled  to  face  the  conclusion  that  the 
experiment  has  failed.  The  suffrage  has  been  taken  away 
from  the  black  man  in  most  of  the  states  where  he  composes 
a  large  part  of  the  population.  The  black  man  of  the  South, 
in  general,  no  longer  has  practically  the  right  of  suffrage. 
The  right  to  aspire  to  office,  however  humble,  is  also  disputed, 
and  in  a  great  measure  denied. 

A  curious  development  has  been  seen  within  the  past  year 
along  this  line.  President  Roosevelt  has  appointed  fewer 
black  men  in  the  South  than  did  President  McKinley.  There 
are  fewer  black  men  now  holding  Federal  offices  in  the  South 
than  there  were  when  President  McKinley  died;  yet  loud 
outcries  are  to  be  heard  from  the  greater  part  of  the  South 
against  what  is  called  President  Roosevelt's  policy  of  appoint- 
ing black  men  to  office,  whereas  under  President  McKinley, 
under  President  Harrison,  under  President  Hayes  —  under 
all  the  preceding  Presidents  —  nothing  was  said,  although 
more  black  men  were  appointed. 

A  few  nights  ago  a  black  man,  holding  an  important  office, 
attended  an  official  reception  at  the  White  House.  There  has 
not  been  a  time  since  the  Civil  War  when  black  men  have  not 
held  similar  offices  in  the  Federal  Government.  At  official 
receptions,  the  black  men  holding  those  offices  have  always 
attended.  They  attended  the  receptions  of  Presidents 
McKinley,  Cleveland  and  the  others.  Yet  the  attendance  at 
President  Roosevelt's  was  the  signal  for  an  outcry  that  the 
whites  were  being  insulted  by  the  appearance  of  this  black 
office-holder.  Now,  I  am  not  discussing  the  question.  I  am 
simply  showing  that  the  same  state  of  official  treatment  of 
the  blacks  meets  a  change  in  the  public  feeling  of  the  South; 
that  the  right  to  aspire  to  office  under  the  Federal  Govern- 


THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB  127 

ment  which  was  formerly  unquestioned  is  now  questioned. 
And  it  is  probably  but  a  matter  of  time  —  not  so  very  long  a 
time  —  when  the  overwhelming  weight  of  opinion  of  the 
white  men  will  succeed  in  excluding  blacks  from  all  offices  in 
the  Southern  states. 

So  the  country  has  to  face  the  failure  of  the  plan  which  was 
adopted  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  to  lift  the  blacks  from 
the  condition  in  which  they  were  left  when  they  were  freed 
from  slavery  by  conferring  upon  them  the  suffrage.  We  can 
never  throw  off  the  responsibility  that  rests  on  our  people  for 
the  well-being  of  these  men  who  were  held  in  bondage  for  so 
many  generations,  and  the  new  question  of  what  can  be  done 
for  them,  now  that  the  first  attempt  has  failed,  is  one  that 
challenges  the  best  thought  and  the  best  patriotism  of  our 
country. 

But  let  me  say  this:  You  did  not  live  and  labor  in  vain  in 
this  field.  The  spirit  in  which  you  wrought  still  lives.  You 
have  created  a  higher  type  and  sense  of  patriotism;  you  have 
elevated  the  character  of  American  citizenship;  and  there 
live  today,  largely  through  your  efforts  and  the  example  and 
inspiration  furnished  by  you  and  the  men  who  labored  with 
you  in  1863,  men  enough  in  this  land,  devoted  to  their  coun- 
try, competent  to  meet  the  problems  and  perform  the  labors 
of  good  citizenship,  to  carry  on  the  blessings  that  you  saved 
from  extinction  to  the  remotest  generation.  And  to  that  end, 
long  live  the  Union  League  Club ! 


THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

REMARKS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR,  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF 
THE  TWO  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTIETH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE 
FOUNDING  OF  ITS  MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT,  MAY  26,  1903 

THE  few  words  which  I  have  been  asked  to  say  on  this 
interesting  occasion  need  be  nothing  more  than  to  read 
a  letter  which  has  been  placed  in  my  hands  by  the  Mayor 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States : 

White  House, 
Washington,  March  20,  1903. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Mayor: 

It  is  with  sincere  regret  that  I  find  myself  unable  to  accept  your  invita- 
tion. I  am  to  be  in  California  on  the  date  you  mention.  Otherwise,  I 
should  have  strained  every  nerve  to  be  present  on  an  occasion  so  interest- 
ing to  a  native  New  Yorker  who  is  at  the  time  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  changes  in  New  York  City  during  the  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  which  have  just  elapsed  are  such  as  could  be  paralleled 
nowhere  else  in  the  world.  We  now  have  in  New  York  the  second  largest 
city  of  the  world,  and  it  is  no  idle  compliment  to  you,  and  to  those  asso- 
ciated with  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  for  me  to  say  that  there  is  now  no  other  city 
here  or  abroad  of  whose  governing  officials  its  people  have  more  just 
reason  to  feel  proud.     With  regard, 

Sincerely  yours, 

(Signed)  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

It  is  impossible  to  think  of  any  municipal  celebration  which 
has  more  national  interest  than  this.  It  is  no  mere  figure  of 
speech  to  say,  as  the  orator  of  the  day  has  said,  that  this  is 
the  gateway  of  the  nation.  The  municipal  government  which 
was  established  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  upon  this 
island,  has  borne  a  burden  for  the  nation,  because  it  has 
stood  at  the  gateway;  because  through  this  portal  have  come 
the  millions  from  the  old  world,  here  first  to  learn  the  lesson 
of  independent  manhood,  and  here  first  to  learn  the  lesson  of 

129 


130  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

freedom  controlled  and  subordinated  to  law.  Because  this 
was  the  gateway  of  commerce  and  the  center  of  wealth  have 
come  to  it  from  all  over  this  great  land  the  youth  —  full  of 
ambition  and  of  hope  —  seeking  fame  and  fortune;  have 
come  to  it  the  men  who  control  the  great  business  enter- 
prises of  the  whole  country,  that  they  may  be  together  for 
business  intercourse,  rather  than  remain  at  the  place  where 
the  material  enterprise  is  conducted.  Here  have  come  the 
men  who  have  been  successful  throughout  the  entire  country, 
to  find  the  means  of  spending,  with  the  greatest  facility  and 
the  greatest  pleasure,  the  wealth  they  have  accumulated. 
The  constant  growth  and  the  constant  shifting  of  our  popu- 
lation —  breaking  constantly  the  ties  of  neighborhood  — 
have  made  it  impossible  that  we  should  be  such  a  homogene- 
ous people  as  to  render  it  easy  to  conduct  good  government. 
We  have  been  wrestling  here  —  the  municipal  government  of 
which  you  are  the  head  has,  during  the  past  half-century 
of  our  greatest  growth  been  wrestling,  with  the  most  difficult 
problem  of  popular  government  in  this  world;  all  because  of 
the  functions  that  the  city  of  New  York  has  performed  for  the 
whole  people  of  the  United  States. 

That  property  and  life  are  protected;  that  the  city  still 
grows  and  ever  grows;  that  peace  and  order  reign;  that  more 
stately  palaces  rise  along  our  streets;  that  libraries,  and 
schools,  and  churches  increase  and  multiply;  that  treasures 
of  art  and  of  literature  accumulate;  that  the  people  of  the 
city  show  capacity  to  govern  themselves  —  slaves  to  no 
ruler  and  to  no  party  —  competent  to  set  up  and  to  pull 
down  their  municipal  government  as  they  will;  that  the 
people  of  New  York  respond  to  every  demand  of  patriotic 
duty;  that  the  people  of  New  York  respond  to  every  demand 
of  humanity;  that  love  for  country  and  love  for  mankind 
find  in  good  citizenship  and  in  noble  works  of  charity  examples 
to  be  surpassed  nowhere  on  earth  —  we  all  can  testify.    And 


THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK  131 

the  reason  is  that  the  men  who  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago  founded  this  municipal  government  were  sound  and 
wholesome  men,  and  that  their  spirit  of  freedom,  of  tolera- 
tion, of  civic  pride,  and  good  citizenship  survives,  permeat- 
ing the  whole  increasing  mass  of  the  great  metropolis.  I  am 
proud  to  come  back  from  the  councils  of  the  nation  to  my 
own  home;  proud  to  be  a  citizen  of  New  York. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  NEW  YORK 

ADDRESS  AT  A  DINNER  OF  THE  LOTUS  CLUB  IN  HONOR  OP 
THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR,  NEW  YORK,  MAY  9,  1903 

I  AM  deeply  sensitive,  I  could  not  be  otherwise  than  deeply- 
affected,  in  receiving  this  accolade  of  honor  conferred  by 
being  the  guest  of  the  Lotus  Club.  The  Chinese  proverb 
says:  "  What  is  the  use  of  being  a  mandarin  of  two  tails  if  it 
is  not  known  in  one's  native  village  ?  "  I  thank  you  for  the 
kind  expressions  which  the  personal  friendship  of  President 
Lawrence  has  colored  so  highly  and  so  agreeably  in  your  greet- 
ing to  me.  I  regret  my  own  incapacity  fittingly  to  respond 
to  the  honor  which  you  confer  upon  me.  I  feel  myself  to  be 
in  the  position  of  the  man  who  was  asked,  "Is  your  wife 
entertaining  this  winter  ?"  and  who  answered,  "Not  very." 

I  am  in  the  safest  possible  position,  but  the  worst  possible 
position,  for  originality  tonight,  because  I  am  here  and  speak- 
ing. The  only  way  in  which  any  one  today  can  secure  credit 
for  originality  is  by  being  somewhere  else  and  letting  the 
gentlemen  of  the  press,  out  of  their  own  fertile  imaginations, 
originate  his  remarks. 

I  have  said  that  the  only  way  a  man  can  be  really  original 
is  to  be  silent,  or  to  allow  the  gentlemen  of  the  press  to  origi- 
nate his  remarks.  We  have  had  some  signal  illustrations  of 
that  in  a  statement  purporting  to  come  from  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  who  had  just  been  most  royally  enter- 
tained in  St.  Louis.  A  comforting  and  original  genius  of 
the  press  says,  "  The  President,  considering  sternly  for  a 
moment,  said:  '  You  may  print  from  me  the  fact  that  I  had 
nothing  to  eat  in  St.  Louis  \"  I  ask  you  what  genius  could 
ever  have  originated  that  statement  outside  of  the  press. 


134  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

How  could  any  man  just  coming  from  his  entertainer's  house 
ever  have  conceived  such  a  supreme  effort  of  originality  as 
the  statement  that  he  had  had  nothing  to  eat!  A  few  days 
ago,  another  genius  put  into  the  mouth  of  General  Sir  Baden- 
Powell,  the  distinguished  English  cavalry  officer  who  had 
been  here  looking  at  the  movements  of  our  cavalry,  the 
statement  that  they  did  not  amount  to  much  anyway;  that 
they  were  overfed.  When  a  man  trusts  to  himself  and  really 
adventures  upon  observations  which  he  really  makes,  he  is 
certain  to  be  bald  and  uninteresting. 

Your  president  has  expressed  the  hope  that  I  may  enjoy 
the  relaxation  and  the  hilarity  of  this  occasion.    I  assure  you 
that  in  about  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  I  shall  begin  to  enjoy  it. 
I  have  been  so  far  removed  from  my  old  friends  in  New  York 
for  the  past  four  years,  that  it  seems  to  me  as  if  I  were  coming 
back  from  a  great  distance,  after  a  long  period  of  absence. 
It  has  not  been  an  ordinary  exile.    It  has  so  happened  that 
the  duties  to  which  your  president  has  referred  in  too  compli- 
mentary terms  have  been  so  engrossing  in  their  character, 
have  involved  dealing  with  questions  so  entirely  different 
from  those  which  occupied  the  community  in  which  I  had 
lived  for  so  many  years,  that  not  merely  has  my  body  been 
absent,  but  my  mind  and  heart  and  soul  have  been  engaged 
in  the  isles  of  the  sea.    The  ordinary  exile  who  travels  away 
from  home  ever  finds  his  affection  and  his  thoughts  harking 
back  to  those  he  has  left.    For  four  years  past  not  only  my 
body  but  my  mind  has  been  removed  to  distant  fields  and  in 
different  occupations,  so  that  in  coming  back  to  New  York  it 
seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  been  away  for  an  age  in  another  world; 
and  it  seems  strange  to  me  to  find  you  all  still  so  young; 
to  find  that  you  still  have  the  same  bright  and  cheerful  faces, 
no  more  wrinkles,  no  more  gray  hairs,  no  fewer  hairs,  no  less 
enthusiasm,  and  youth,  and  capacity  for  enjoyment,  than 
when  a  hundred  years  ago  I  met  you.    It  has  produced  a 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  NEW  YORK  135 

curious  effect  upon  me,  this  coming  back;  the  break,  the 
complete  break,  has  led  to  my  memory  going  back  and  join- 
ing itself,  not  to  the  city  and  the  men  as  they  were  four  years 
ago,  but  to  the  early  scenes  of  my  life  here.  As  I  come  back 
to  our  streets,  I  think  of  the  life  of  nearly  forty  years  ago, 
when  the  first  deep  impressions  of  the  lad  coming  fresh  from 
the  country  were  made.  Your  invitation  called  up  most 
vividly  to  my  mind  a  night  passed  in  the  old  Lotus  Club  in 
Irving  Place,  when  John  Brougham  held  the  center  of  the 
stage,  and  daylight  came  under  the  spell  of  that  delightful 
master  of  humor  and  good  fellowship. 

I  recall  the  days  when  the  stages  in  winter  ran  on  run- 
ners on  Broadway,  and  when  the  Fifth  Avenue  stages  coming 
from  Fulton  Street  had  their  northerly  terminus  at  the 
Croton  Cottage,  a  little  road-house  at  Forty-first  Street, 
where  Frederick  Vanderbilt's  house  stands  now;  when  the 
Madison  Avenue  stages  ran  to  the  Ultima  Thule  of  Forty- 
second  Street;  when  Pfaff's  flourished  on  Broadway;  when 
Wallack's  Theater  was  the  most  northerly  place  of  amuse- 
ment in  the  city;  when  New  York  was  a  little  provincial 
town  of  but  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants; 
and  it  requires  an  effort  to  bring  myself  down  from  those 
distant  days,  from  the  days  when  the  first  thing  I  asked  was 
how  to  get  to  Beecher's  church,  and  was  told  to  cross  Fulton 
Ferry  and  follow  the  crowd,  and,  following  it,  found  the 
prince,  that  great  exponent  of  blood  and  brain  in  religion. 

"What  a  wonderful  city  it  is,  whose  appearance  and  whose 
present  activity  join  on  to  those  early  recollections!  What 
a  good  old  town  it  is!  Men  may  abuse  it;  many  hard  things 
are  said  about  it;  it  has  many  faults;  but,  after  all,  it  closes 
within  its  limits  the  best  of  all  there  is,  here  or  anywhere  on 
earth,  to  those  of  us  who  believe  that  the  hope  of  the  world 
lies  in  the  great  process  of  liberty  which  is  lifting  up  to  parti- 
cipation, intelligent  and  effective  participation,  in  govern- 


136  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

ment,  the  entire  body  of  the  people,  leaving  no  class  below; 
and  those  who  do  not  believe  that  need  hard  experience  for 
their  education.  Into  this  gateway  of  the  western  world 
have  come  since  the  census  of  1850,  between  the  census  of 
1850  and  that  of  1900,  more  than  seventeen  millions  of 
people  from  across  the  water.  Here  the  men  of  the  Old 
World  are  received  and  taught  the  first  lessons  of  citizenship, 
taught  to  stand  erect  in  the  independence  of  manhood,  with 
no  superior.  The  first  results  of  the  lesson  are  not  lovely  or 
agreeable,  the  first  results  of  the  lesson  are  crude  and  harsh 
and  disagreeable;  but  it  is  a  necessary  lesson  for  the  men 
who  are  to  be  self-governing  and  country-governing.  Here 
the  men  of  the  Old  World  are  taught  first  that  liberty  means 
not  license,  but  ordered  liberty  and  subordination  to  law. 
The  lesson  is  not  easily  learned.  The  idea  of  freedom  in  its 
first  dawning  in  the  human  mind  means  freedom  from  all 
limitations,  and  the  men  who  grasp  it  first  beat  against  the 
bars  of  order  and  law.  But  the  burden  is  upon  this  city,  at 
once,  to  teach  the  undisciplined  masses  of  mankind  who  seek 
the  freedom  of  the  West,  the  double  lesson  of  independence 
and  liberty,  but  of  liberty  restrained  and  ordered  by  law  and 
justice.  Let  the  denizens  of  the  cities  and  quiet  fields,  who 
have  the  ordering  of  their  own  lives  with  the  lessons  of  free 
forefathers  to  guide  them,  find  fault  with  the  city  of  New 
York;  but  let  them  remember  that  the  city  of  New  York  is 
doing  the  rough  work  of  civilization,  making  over  the  raw 
material  of  citizenship,  and  standing  in  the  post  of  difficulty, 
of  hardship,  and  of  disagreeable  duty,  in  the  preparation  of 
mankind  for  that  citizenship  upon  which  alone  can  per- 
manently rest  the  advance  of  mankind. 

Good  old  New  York!  Absence  has  made  me  love  her 
but  the  more,  criticism  makes  me  appreciate  her  merits  but 
the  more,  and  detraction  makes  me  but  the  prouder  of  being 
her  citizen.    And  when  I  come  in  for  a  day  or  two,  when  I 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  NEW  YORK  137 

come  here  and  see  about  me  the  faces  of  the  old  friends  with 
whom  I  have  had  so  many  good  times,  with  whom  and  against 
whom  I  have  fought  so  often,  from  whom  I  have  received 
so  many  kindnesses,  I  want  to  come  home.  I  feel  like  the 
young  lady  from  Chicago  who  went  to  the  new  hotel,  and 
wrote  back  to  her  friend  that  the  new  bath-room  was  so 
fascinating  that  she  could  hardly  wait  until  Saturday  night. 
Coming  from  outside  the  city  and  seeing  its  wonderful 
advance,  and  how  the  municipal  surgery  is  operating  for 
appendicitis,  taking  out  the  bowels  of  the  city,  the  kidneys, 
and  the  liver,  for  underground  transit,  for  new  Pennsylvania 
tunnels  and  stations;  how  even  the  New  York  Central  has 
become  conscious  of  the  possession  of  a  liver  which  needs 
excavation;  how  upon  the  surface  our  city  is  growing  great 
and  beautiful  —  I  feel  bound  to  say  that  the  country,  the 
great  country  with  whose  prosperity  our  city  must  rise  or  fall, 
which  finds  its  flower  and  fruit  here,  keeps  pace  with  the 
metropolis.  I  doubt  if  there  has  ever  been  a  lustrum  in 
which  any  people  have  made  such  progress  as  the  people  of 
the  United  States  have  made  in  the  past  five  years.  When 
we  were  boys  at  Peekskill  and  elsewhere,  there  was  no  higher 
test  of  capacity  than  a  knowledge  of  geography;  think  how 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  been  learning  geography 
in  the  last  five  years;  how  the  horizon  of  the  American  boy 
has  been  pushed  back;  five  years  ago,  who  knew  where  the 
Philippines  were;  who  knew  what  was  the  road  from  the  sea 
to  Peking;  who  knew  much  about  the  West  Indies  ?  Five 
years  ago,  how  much  did  we  know  about  the  politics  of  the 
world  that  centered  about  the  Eastern  Question  ?  We  have 
passed  through  an  era  of  isolation  since  the  days  when  James 
Monroe  and  John  Quincy  Adams  were  trained  diplomats 
concerned  in  the  affairs  of  civilization.  W7e  have  now  come 
into  another  era,  in  which  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
taught  a  lesson  to  every  power  in  Christendom.    The  knowl- 


138  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

edge,  the  topics  of  discussion,  the  educational  influence  to  be 
found  among  our  people,  have  suddenly,  like  the  crystals 
shooting  out  upon  the  surface  of  the  water  at  the  point  of 
freezing,  instantly  spread  out  from  our  own  domestic  home 
affairs  into  a  wide  and  general  observation  and  understand- 
ing of  the  affairs  of  all  mankind.  The  knowledge  and  the 
interest  of  the  American  people  have  broadened  and  taken 
in  the  whole  world. 

The  possession  and  the  use  of  power  are  strengthening  the 
fiber  and  increasing  the  capacity  of  our  people.  The  pos- 
session of  money  has  not  yet,  and  I  have  faith  to  believe  that 
in  the  future  it  will  not  have,  emasculated  the  American 
people  or  brought  degeneracy  in  its  wake;  for  the  possession 
of  money  which  has  resulted  from  our  wonderful  prosperity 
is  the  possession  of  money  by  all  the  people,  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land.  Never  in  this  world  has  so  much  money 
been  used  for  the  happiness  and  comfort  of  so  many  people 
as  is  being  used  in  the  United  States  today.  Never  in  the 
world  have  there  been  so  many  people  so  free  from  the  harsh 
restraints  of  poverty,  so  many  people  able  to  furnish  luxuries 
and  comforts  to  their  families,  so  many  people  able  to  edu- 
cate their  children,  so  many  people  able  to  perform  the  duties 
of  good  citizenship,  and  secure  in  the  comfort  and  security  of 
prosperous  lives,  as  today.  Where  money  is  most  greatly 
concentrated,  we  see  but  the  efflorescence  of  wealth,  in  the 
four-in-hand  parade,  the  red  devils  that  shoot  about  the 
country,  in  the  steam-yachts  which  carry  our  millionaires. 
But  underlying  it  all  is  the  greatest  expenditure  of  money  for 
all  good  and  great  causes  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
Underlying  it  all  is  that  benevolence,  that  interest  in  educa- 
tion, that  love  for  humanity,  that  willingness  to  labor  and  to 
spend,  and  to  spend  without  limit,  for  the  elevation  of  man- 
kind, and  the  alleviation  of  suffering,  in  which  the  city  of  New 
York  easily  leads  the  world. 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  NEW  YORK  139 

I  feel  that  in  coming  back  to  my  home  I  shall  come  back 
to  a  city  which  has  kept  up  in  the  march  of  progress  in  the 
forefront  of  a  nation  ever  progressing;  and  I  feel  like  saying 
tonight  in  this  festal  company:  Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for 
tomorrow,  and  tomorrow,  and  still  tomorrow,  and  for  unend- 
ing years,  the  great  city  which  is  our  home  and  the  great 
country  that  we  love  will  not  die,  but  live  and  do  their 
work  for  the  elevation  of  mankind  and  the  progress  of  civi- 
lization, beyond  the  dreams  of  prophets  and  the  hopes  of 
philanthropists. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

ADDRESS  OF  THE   SECRETARY  OF   STATE   ON    PRESENTING   TO 

FRANCE  THE  GOLD  MEDAL  AUTHORIZED  BY  CONGRESS 

THE   FRANKLIN  BICENTENNIAL,  PHILADELPHIA 

APRIL  20,  1906 

ON  the  27th  of  April,  1904,  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  provided  by  statute  that  the  Secretary  of  State 
should  cause  to  be  struck  a  medal  to  commemorate  the  two- 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Benjamin  Franklin, 
and  that  one  single  impression  on  gold  should  be  presented, 
under  the  direction  of  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
to  the  republic  of  France. 

Under  the  direction  of  the  President  I  now  execute  this 
law  by  delivering  the  medal  to  you  as  the  representative  of 
the  republic  of  France.  This  medal  is  the  work  of  fraternal 
collaboration  by  two  artists  whose  citizenship  Americans 
prize  highly,  Louis  and  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens.  The  name 
indicates  that  they  may  have  inherited  some  of  the  fine 
artistic  sense  which  makes  France  preeminent  in  the  exquisite 
art  of  the  medalist. 

On  one  side  of  the  medal  you  will  find  the  wise,  benign,  and 
spirited  face  of  Franklin.  On  the  other  side  Literature, 
Science,  and  Philosophy  attend,  while  History  makes  her 
record.  The  material  of  the  medal  is  American  gold,  as  was 
Franklin. 

For  itself  this  would  be  but  a  small  dividend  upon  the 
investments  which  the  ardent  Beaumarchais  made  for  the 
mythical  firm  of  Hortalez  &  Company.  It  would  be  but 
scanty  interest  on  the  never-ending  loans  yielded  by  the 
steady  friendship  of  de  Vergennes  to  the  distressed  appeals 

141 


142  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  Franklin.  It  is  not  appreciable  even  as  a  gift  when  one 
recalls  what  Lafayette,  Rochambeau,  de  Grasse  and  their 
gallant  comrades  were  to  us,  and  what  they  did  for  us;  when 
one  sees  in  historical  perspective,  the  great  share  of  France 
in  securing  American  independence,  looming  always  larger 
from  our  own  point  of  view,  in  comparison  with  what  we  did 
for  ourselves. 

But  take  it  for  your  country  as  a  token  that  with  all  the 
changing  manners  of  the  passing  years,  with  all  the  vast  and 
welcome  influx  of  new  citizens  from  all  the  countries  of  the 
earth,  Americans  have  not  forgotten  their  fathers  and  their 
fathers'  friends. 

Know  by  it  that  we  have  in  America  a  sentiment  for 
France;  and  a  sentiment,  enduring  among  a  people,  is  a 
great  and  substantial  fact  to  be  reckoned  with. 

We  feel  a  little  closer  to  you  of  France  because  of  what  you 
were  to  Franklin.  Before  the  resplendence  and  charm  of 
your  country's  history  —  when  all  the  world  does  homage  to 
your  literature,  your  art,  your  exact  science,  your  philosophic 
thought  —  we  smile  with  pleasure,  for  we  feel,  if  we  do  not 
say:  "  Yes,  these  are  old  friends  of  ours;  they  were  very 
fond  of  our  Ben  Franklin  and  he  of  them." 

Made  more  appreciative,  perhaps,  by  what  France  did  for 
us  when  this  old  philosopher  came  to  you,  a  stranger,  bearing 
the  burdens  of  our  early  poverty  and  distress,  we  feel  that 
the  enormous  value  of  France  to  civilization  should  lead 
every  lover  of  mankind,  in  whatever  land,  earnestly  to  desire 
the  peace,  the  prosperity,  the  permanence,  and  the  unchecked 
development,  of  your  national  life. 

We,  at  least,  cannot  feel  otherwise;  for  what  you  were  to 
Franklin,  we  would  be  —  we  are  —  to  you:  always  true  and 
loyal  friends. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  143 

REPLY  OF  M.  JUSSERAND,  THE  FRENCH  AMBASSADOR 

On  behalf  of  the  French  Republic,  with  feelings  of  deepest 
gratitude,  I  receive  the  gift  offered  to  my  country,  this  mas- 
terful portrait  of  Franklin,  which  a  law  of  Congress  ordered 
to  be  made  and  which  is  signed  with  the  name,  twice  famous, 
of  Saint-Gaudens. 

Everything  in  such  a  present  powerfully  appeals  to  a 
French  heart.  It  represents  a  man  ever  venerated  and 
admired  in  my  country  —  the  scientist,  the  philosopher,  the 
inventor,  the  leader  of  men,  the  one  who  gave  to  France  her 
first  notion  of  what  true  Americans  really  were.  "  When  you 
were  in  France,"  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux  wrote  later  to 
Franklin,  "  there  was  no  need  to  praise  the  Americans.  We 
had  only  to  say:  Look;  here  is  their  representative." 

The  gift  is  offered  in  this  town  of  Philadelphia  where  there 
exists  a  hall  the  very  name  of  which  is  especially  dear  to 
every  American  and  every  French  heart  —  the  Hall  of 
Independence  —  and  at  a  gathering  of  a  society  founded 
"  for  promoting  useful  knowledge  ",  which  has  remained  true 
to  its  principle,  worthy  of  its  founder,  and  which  numbers 
many  whose  fame  is  equally  great  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean. 

I  receive  it  at  the  hands  of  one  of  the  best  servants  of 
the  state  which  this  great  country  ever  produced,  no  less 
admired  at  the  head  of  her  diplomacy  now  than  he  was  lately 
at  the  head  of  her  army,  one  of  those  rare  men  who  prove  the 
right  man,  whatever  be  the  place.  You  have  listened  to  his 
words,  and  you  will  agree  with  me  when  I  say  that  I  shall 
have  two  golden  gifts  to  forward  to  my  Government:  the 
medal  and  Secretary  Root's  speech. 

The  work  of  art  offered  by  America  to  France  will  be  sent 
to  Paris  to  be  harbored  in  that  unique  museum,  her  Museum 
of  Medals,  where  her  history  is,  so  to  say,  written  in  gold  and 
bronze,  from  the  fifteenth  century  up  to  now,  without  any 


144  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

ruler,  any  great  event,  being  omitted.  Some  of  the  American 
past  is  also  written  there  —  that  period  so  glorious  when 
French  and  American  history  were  the  same  history,  when 
first  rose  a  nation  that  has  never  since  ceased  to  rise. 

There,  awaiting  your  gift,  are  preserved  medals  struck  in 
France  at  the  very  time  of  the  events,  in  honor  of  Washing- 
ton, to  commemorate  the  relief  of  Boston  in  1776;  a  medal 
of  John  Paul  Jones  in  honor  of  his  naval  campaign  of  1779; 
another  medal  representing  Washington,  and  one  represent- 
ing General  Howard,  to  commemorate  the  battle  of  Cowpens 
in  1781;  one  to  celebrate  the  peace  of  1783  and  the  freedom 
of  the  thirteen  states;  one  of  Lafayette;  one  of  Suffren, 
who  fought  so  valiantly  on  distant  seas  for  the  same  cause  as 
Washington;  one,  lastly,  of  Franklin  himself,  dated  1784, 
bearing  the  famous  inscription  composed  in  honor  of  the 
great  man  by  Turgot:  Eripuit  ccelo  fulmen,  sceptrumque 
tyrannis. 

My  earnest  hope  is  that  one  of  the  next  medals  to  be  struck 
and  added  to  the  series  will  be  one  to  commemorate  the  resur- 
rection of  that  great  town  which  now,  at  this  present  hour, 
agonizes  by  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  The  disaster  of  San 
Francisco  has  awakened  a  feeling  of  deepest  grief  in  every 
French  heart,  and  a  feeling  of  admiration,  too,  for  the  manli- 
ness displayed  by  the  population  during  this  awful  trial.  So 
that  what  will  be  commemorated  will  not  be  only  the 
American  nation's  sorrow,  but  her  unfailing  heroism  and 
energy. 

Now  your  magnificent  gift  will  be  added  to  the  collection 
in  Paris;  it  will  there  be  in  its  proper  place.  The  thousands 
who  visit  that  museum  will  be  reminded  by  it  that  the  ties 
happily  formed  long  ago  are  neither  broken  nor  distended, 
and  they  will  contemplate  with  a  veneration  equal  to  that  of 
their  ancestors  the  features  of  one  whom  Mirabeau  justly 
called  one  of  the  heroes  of  mankind. 


JULES  MARTIN  CAMBON 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR  AT  A  FAREWELL  DINNER 
TO  THE  FRENCH  AMBASSADOR,  NOVEMBER  15,  1902 

Jules  Martin  Cambon,  born  in  Paris,  April  5,  1849,  was  appointed  Governor- 
General  of  Algeria  in  1891,  and  Ambassador  to  the  United  States  in  1897.  He 
represented  the  Spanish  Government  at  Washington  during  the  Spanish-American 
War,  and  signed  the  Spanish-American  Protocol  in  1898.  He  was  appointed 
Ambassador  to  Spain  in  1902,  and  at  a  farewell  dinner  in  Washington,  November  15, 
1902,  Mr.  Root  spoke  as  follows: 

IT  is  a  melancholy  duty  to  help  you  in  speeding  this  parting 
guest.  Monsieur  Cambon  has  been  an  ideal  ambassador. 
He  has  not  merely  defended,  maintained,  promoted  the  inter- 
ests of  his  own  country,  but  he  has  illustrated  and  made 
attractive  and  charming  to  the  people  to  whom  he  was 
accredited  all  that  was  noblest  and  best  in  the  people  of  his 
own  country.  In  our  modern  days,  where  peace  and  not  war 
is  the  normal  condition  of  man,  the  victories  of  peace  consist 
not  in  wresting  territory  from  a  hostile  people,  nor  in  carry- 
ing away  from  their  capitals  their  works  of  art,  or  their 
wealth,  but  in  gathering  for  home  use  all  that  is  best  in  the 
lessons  of  national  life  and  in  the  influences  of  national 
character. 

The  Teutonic  race  has  characterized  and  marked  the 
development  of  this  new  world  to  a  degree  which  leads  us 
often  to  forget  how  much  we  owe  and  how  much  we  can 
derive  from  the  great  Latin  race,  which  has  given  so  much 
toward  the  development  of  civilization,  and  which  can  give 
so  much  that  we  lack  toward  our  own  progress,  toward  the 
perfection  of  national  and  personal  life  of  which  we  dream. 

Monsieur  Cambon  has  illustrated  to  us  all  that  was  best 
in  the  Latin  world.    I  have  been  sorry  that  he  learned  to 

145 


146  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

speak  English.  I  understand  him  better,  but  the  grace,  the 
beauties  of  his  French  always  seem  to  me  to  raise  a  picture 
of  the  golden  fields  of  grain  of  his  country  spangled  with 
bluets  and  coquelicots;  always  seem  to  bring  into  our 
rougher  and  ruder  Teutonic  life  something  of  the  grace  and 
beauty  and  taste  with  which  the  French  people  are  endowing 
civilization. 

How  much  we  owe  to  it!  Go  back  over  the  long  history, 
from  those  early  and  stormy  days  when  the  Plantagenets 
went  forth  from  their  castles  on  the  Loire  across  the  seas  to 
the  conquest  of  England;  to  the  War  of  the  Hundred  Years; 
to  Louis  XI  with  his  leaden  saints  beating  down  the  aristoc- 
racy of  France;  to  Henry  IV,  the  beau-ideal  of  chivalric 
knighthood,  to  whom  a  race  of  kings  unequalled  in  history 
looked  back  with  pride  and  reverence;  to  the  great,  the 
greatest  of  warriors,  who  with  the  power  of  that  single  nation 
withstood  the  armies  of  the  world  and  gave  the  death-blow  to 
hide-bound  institutions  which  for  centuries  had  dwarfed 
and  bound  the  developing  powers  of  civilization;  to  the  new 
republic,  whose  footsteps  we  have  all  followed  with  hopes  and 
prayers  for  its  success  and  its  permanency,  as,  during  these 
thirty  years,  it  was  proving  itself  a  most  important,  most 
significant  stronghold  of  popular  rights,  of  popular  sover- 
eignty, and  of  hopes  for  the  future  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
of  the  plain  peoples  of  the  earth  in  Europe.  Through  all  the 
long  course  of  the  centuries,  the  French  people  have  been 
doing,  with  pain,  with  travail,  with  infinite  labor  and  sacri- 
fice, the  work  of  civilization  and  of  liberty. 

Through  it  all  the  sunshine  of  La  Belle  France  has  caused 
to  blossom  on  the  sour  and  stern  soil  of  feudalism  not  merely 
royalty  and  aristocratic  privilege,  but  chivalry  and  grace 
and  beauty,  and  the  beneficence  of  art  —  abundant  bless- 
ings to  mankind  which  soften  and  dignify  humanity.  All  this 
Monsieur  Cambon  represents  to  us. 


JULES  MARTIN  CAMBON  147 

It  is  not  the  least  of  his  claims  to  our  affection  that  in  those 
dark  days  for  Spain,  when  the  hard  decrees  of  fate  required 
an  end  to  Spain's  dominion  in  the  western  hemisphere, 
when  that  people  whose  dignity,  whose  personal  worth, 
whose  abounding  and  estimable  qualities  we  all  recognize, 
were  compelled  to  yield  to  overwhelming  power,  he  was  their 
sympathetic  representative  and  defender.  I  hope  that  when 
Monsieur  Cambon  goes  to  his  new  mission  in  Madrid  he  will 
feel  able  with  certainty  to  say  to  the  gentlemen  of  Spain  that 
he  left  behind  him  in  America  nothing  but  respect  and 
esteem  and  admiration  for  them.  I  hope  he  will  tell  them 
that  his  advocacy  of  their  cause,  to  which  he  brought  all  the 
subtlety  of  intellect,  all  the  ability  of  the  trained  diplomatist 
of  France,  has  but  raised  him  in  our  esteem,  and  given  him 
an  added  title  to  our  respect.  And  it  is  delightful  to  know 
that  this,  our  friend,  whom  we  have  learned  to  esteem  so 
highly,  is  going  among  those  whose  gratitude  he  has  earned 
and  whose  affection  he  must  have.  Our  best  and  warmest 
hopes  go  with  him  for  his  success  and  his  promotion  of  bless- 
ings and  prosperity  for  the  people  of  Spain  and  the  people  of 
France  alike.  Success  and  glory  to  him  in  his  new  field! 
Who  knows  what  he  may  accomplish  ?  Who  knows  what 
this  virile,  acute,  and  discriminating  mind  may  do  in  the 
Iberian  Peninsula  ?  Who  knows  but  he  may  lead  to  the 
union  of  the  Gaul  and  the  Visigoth  ?  Who  knows  but  from 
his  agency  may  come  sometime  a  great  Latin  republican 
empire  on  the  continent  of  Europe  ? 

Our  best  wishes  go  with  you,  sir.  We  shall  follow  your 
pathway  with  interest  and  affection.  We  hope  great  things 
for  you;  we  wish  great  blessings  for  your  country  and  the 
country  to  which  you  go.  We  bid  you  goodbye,  we  bid 
you  God-speed,  and  above  all  we  say  to  you,  "Au  Revoir, 
Monsieur  Cambon! " 


THE  ASSASSINATION  OF  PRESIDENT 
CARNOT 

June  26,  1894.  The  New  York  constitutional  convention  having  under  con- 
sideration a  resolution  tendering  to  the  Government  of  France  the  profound  sym- 
pathy of  the  convention  in  the  death  of  President  Carnot  by  assassination,  Mr.  Root 
said: 

IT  seems  to  me  eminently  fitting  that  when  the  represen- 
tatives of  seven  millions  of  people,  who  depend  for  the 
preservation  of  their  lives,  their  liberty,  their  property  upon 
free  constitutional  government,  are  gathered  in  the  supreme 
council  of  the  state  revising  the  foundations  of  social  order, 
and  in  another  land  a  blow  is  struck  at  the  very  heart  of  con- 
stitutional government,  expressions  of  sympathy  with  those 
immediately  affected,  and  of  abhorrence  for  the  crime, 
should  proceed  with  heartiness  and  with  sincerity  from  the 
people's  representatives. 

The  generous  aid  which  the  republic  of  France  vouchsafed 
to  the  infant  American  colonies,  more  than  a  century  ago, 
found  immediate  reflex  action  and  benefit  in  her  own  struggle 
for  liberty.  Side  by  side  with  our  own  American  experiment 
in  constitutional  government,  the  French  experiment  has 
been  going  on  for  a  century,  under  difficulties  and  surrounded 
by  evils  of  which  we  have  known  nothing.  Surmounting 
almost  insurmountable  obstacles,  triumphing  in  the  midst 
of  successive  and  apparently  irretrievable  defeats  for  twenty 
years,  the  republic  of  France  has  stood  erect,  unshaken, 
consolidating  and  making  perpetual  the  foundations  of  free 
constitutional  government. 

And  now  the  hand  of  the  assassin  has  stricken  down  her 
chief  magistrate  and  put  her  people  into  mourning.  Mr.  Pres- 
ident, the  cause  of  freedom  and  of  constitutional  government 

149 


150  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

is  one  cause  the  world  over.  The  enemies  of  constitutional 
government  in  France  are  the  enemies  of  our  government, 
of  our  liberty,  of  our  homes.  With  ever-changing  form,  the 
battle  of  good  and  evil,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  law  and  of 
license,  goes  on  throughout  the  world.  In  the  form  which  it 
assumes  today,  the  enemies  of  freedom  and  of  the  law  raise 
their  horrid  heads  among  us  as  well  as  in  the  cities  of  France. 
One  arm  for  the  good  and  the  right  must  ever  fight  the 
same  battle  the  world  over,  against  wrong  and  against  evil. 
But  one  weapon  stands  ready  for  all.  But  one  means  of 
success  in  this  eternal  conflict  is  at  the  hands  of  all,  and 
that  is  the  universal  sympathy  and  support  of  all  good  men 
the  world  over,  and  universal  detestation  and  abhorrence  the 
world  over  for  the  men  who,  like  the  assassins  of  Carnot,  of 
Garfield,  and  of  Lincoln,  war  against  all  that  is  purest  and 
best  in  mankind.  In  God's  name,  and  in  Liberty's  name, 
Mr.  President,  let  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  the 
state  of  New  York  send  their  sympathy  to  the  people  of 
the  republic  of  France. 


CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES l 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  STATE  AT  A  DINNER  GIVEN 
BY  THE  PILGRIMS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  HONOR  OF  THE 
RIGHT  HONORABLE  EARL  GREY,  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  OF 
CANADA.  NEW  YORK,  MARCH  31.  1906. 

IT  is  an  opportunity  which  I  highly  appreciate  officially 
and  it  is  an  honor  and  a  privilege  personally  to  join  the 
Pilgrims  of  the  United  States  in  their  welcome  to  our  dis- 
tinguished guest.  I  am  glad  to  welcome  him  for  himself, 
because  before  he  was  Governor-General  of  Canada  we  knew 
him  for  a  fitting  representative  of  the  continuous  develop- 
ment in  the  old  home  of  our  race  of  those  qualities  which  we 
most  admire  in  our  fathers,  and  the  possession  of  which  is  the 
surest  hope  of  our  own  continued  prosperity  and  greatness; 
because  he  has  the  English  great-heartedness  and  the  English 
practical  sense  and  wisdom ;  because  he  illustrates  in  himself 
how  great  is  the  influence  upon  a  family  of  having  the  benign 
face  of  Franklin  looking  down  from  its  ancestral  walls. 
Indeed,  we  may  believe  that  through  that  ever-present 
influence  upon  the  generations,  Franklin  has  worked  out  his 
own  salvation  and  wrought  out  the  character  which  has 
brought  him  home  again  to  his  own  beloved  Philadelphia. 

I  am  glad  to  welcome  him  for  his  country.  The  policy  — 
the  traditional  policy  —  of  the  United  States  forbids  alliances 
with  other  countries,  but  every  lawyer  knows,  every  man  of 
affairs  knows,  that  the  signature  and  the  seal  upon  a  contract 
is  of  little  value  unless  the  character  and  purpose  of  the  con- 
tracting parties  is  sincere,  and  that  a  sincere  and  genuine 
common  purpose  to  do  the  thing  to  which  a  contract  relates 

1  See  also  addresses  on  The  Builders  of  Canada,  and  The  Canadian  Reciprocity 
Agreement,  pp.  157-187. 

151 


152  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

is  as  efficient  without  the  seal  and  the  signature  as  it  would 
be  with  them.  With  every  country  that  seeks  to  attain  the 
purpose  that  dwells  in  all  the  highest  ideals  of  the  American 
people,  there  is  an  alliance  effective  and  perpetual.  And 
wherever  the  English  people  go,  wherever  their  institutions, 
their  laws,  their  customs,  are  carried,  there  the  American  can 
breathe  freely,  there  the  American  can  pursue  his  calling 
without  fear  or  hindrance;  and  the  progress,  the  growth,  the 
glory,  of  England  is  at  every  step  a  gain  to  every  man  who 
speaks  the  English  tongue,  who  has  formed  his  character  and 
his  customs  upon  English  law  and  the  genius  of  English 
institutions. 

I  am  glad  to  welcome  him  for  the  great  people  over  whom 
he  is  governor.  I  can  do  it  with  especial  pleasure  because  of 
a  genuine  liking  for  the  people  of  Canada  —  a  liking  for  the 
quaint  charm  and  grace  of  its  French  people,  for  the  sturdy 
vigor,  the  northern  virility  and  force,  of  its  English-speaking 
people  —  a  liking  which  I  know  is  shared  by  the  great  mass 
of  the  American  people,  and  especially  by  those  born  and 
bred,  as  I  was,  near  the  Canadian  border. 

I  think  that  the  American  people  should  recognize  the  fact 
that  a  great  change  has  taken  place  upon  the  other  side  of 
the  border  —  a  change  which  materially  affects  the  theoreti- 
cal, the  assumed  or  supposed,  relation  or  possibilities  of 
relation  between  the  United  States  and  Canada.  It  was 
apparently,  as  we  read  the  history  of  the  negotiations  which 
led  to  the  treaty  of  peace  of  1783,  rather  in  doubt  for  a  time 
whether  Canada  should  not  be  ceded  and  become  part  of  the 
United  States  when  our  independence  was  recognized.  In 
1812  the  British  Governor-General  of  Ontario  wrote,  in  per- 
sonal letters  which  have  since  been  published,  that  a  majority 
of  the  people  of  his  province  were  rather  in  favor  of  the 
Americans  than  of  the  English.  We  must  recognize  that  a 
great  and  radical  change  has  taken  place.     Canada  is  no 


CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  153 

longer  the  outlying  northern  country  in  which  a  fringe  of 
descendants  of  royalists,  emigrating  from  the  colonies  when 
they  became  independent  of  Great  Britain,  lived  and  gained 
a  precarious  subsistence  from  a  sterile  soil.  It  has  become  a 
great  people,  increasing  in  population  and  in  wealth.  The 
stirrings  of  a  national  sentiment  are  to  be  felt.  In  their  rela- 
tions to  England  one  can  see  that  while  still  loyal  to  their 
mother-country,  still  a  loyal  part  of  the  British  Empire,  they 
are  growing  up,  and,  as  the  boy  is  to  his  parents  when  he 
attains  manhood,  they  are  a  personality  of  themselves.  In 
their  relations  to  us  they  have  become  a  sister  nation.  With 
their  enormous  natural  wealth,  with  their  vigor  and  energy, 
following  the  pathway  that  we  have  followed,  protecting 
their  industries  as  we  have  protected  ours,  proud  of  their 
country  as  we  are  proud  of  ours,  they  are  no  longer  the  little 
remnant  upon  our  borders;  they  are  a  great  and  powerful 
sister  nation.  And  the  people  of  America  look  with  no  grudg- 
ing or  jealous  eye  upon  this  development.  We  bid  them 
God-speed  in  their  growth  in  greatness  and  in  power,  in  their 
capacity  to  do  their  part  for  civilization,  for  peace  and  justice, 
for  liberty  and  righteousness  among  the  nations. 

The  newspapers  have  said  that  at  this  dinner  an  announce- 
ment would  be  made  that  all  existing  questions  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States  have  been  settled.  I  wish  it 
were  so.  This  can  be  said:  that  we  are  going  to  try  to  settle 
all  existing  questions;  that  we  are  trying  to  settle  them,  and 
that  with  a  sincere  and  earnest  purpose  we  believe  we  shall 
settle  them. 

The  race  of  seals  which  have  for  so  many  years  pro- 
duced a  most  valuable  product  for  the  clothing  of  mankind 
are  rapidly  disappearing.  We  are  going  to  try  to  stop  the 
frightful  waste  which  is  involved  in  their  destruction.  The 
fish  supply  —  the  great  food  supply  found  in  the  fish  of  the 
Great  Lakes  —  is  being  destroyed,  because  in  those  inter- 


154  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

national  waters  neither  country  can  by  itself  enforce  rules 
and  regulations  similar  to  those  laws  for  game  preservation 
which  are  maintained  within  our  own  jurisdiction  and  the 
Canadian  jurisdiction.  We  are  going  to  try  to  agree  upon 
regulations  which  shall  be  binding  on  both  sides  of  the 
dividing  line.  The  northeastern  fisheries  questions  have 
been  under  discussion  ever  since  they  were  settled  finally  in 
the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  of  1713.  We  are  going  to  try  once 
more  to  settle  them.1  There  are  boundaries  remaining  to  be 
marked.  There  are  many  other  questions  that  ought  to  be 
disposed  of.  And  now,  while  there  is  no  controversy  about 
them,  we  are  going  to  try  to  get  rid  of  them.  The  trouble 
with  such  questions  is,  that  people  are  too  apt  to  treat  them 
like  the  man  who  did  not  mend  his  roof  when  it  rained 
because  he  would  get  wet  and  did  not  mend  it  when  it  did  not 
rain  because  it  did  not  leak.  The  Alaska  boundary  question 
could  have  been  settled  without  difficulty  at  any  time  for 
many  years;  there  was  no  controversy  about  it,  and  it  failed 
of  settlement  because  our  Congress  was  unwilling  to  make  an 
appropriation  to  survey  the  boundary;  and  through  that 
fatuous  refusal  to  dispose  of  the  question  when  there  was  no 
controversy,  there  came  a  most  critical  situation,  the  settle- 
ment of  which  was  exceedingly  difficult.  It  has  left,  I  fear, 
much  hard  feeling,  which  will  disappear,  I  hope,  in  time  — ■ 
and  in  a  very  short  time. 

But  we  are  at  peace.  It  is  just  three  hundred  years  since 
Henry  IV,  the  greatest  of  French  monarchs,  conceived  his 
great  design  to  set  a  bound  to  ambition  in  Europe  and  to 
secure  the  disarmament  of  European  powers;  and  formed  a 
fast  and  firm  alliance  with  the  great  Elizabeth  of  England  to 
secure  that  end.  Three  hundred  years  have  passed,  and  still 
on  the  frontiers  of  Europe  millions  of  armed  men  jealously 

1  See  the  North  Atlantic  Fisheries  Arbitration — Oral  Argument  of  Elihu  Root. 
Harvard  University  Press,  1917. 


CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  155 

watch  for  incursions  of  possible  enemies.  But  with  us, 
eighty-nine  years  ago,  by  a  simple  exchange  of  notes,  the 
British  and  American  Governments  agreed  upon  disarma- 
ment on  the  great  international  waters  between  Canada  and 
the  United  States;  and  today  millions  of  people,  thriving 
cities,  wealth  beyond  computation,  are  free  from  wars,  from 
alarms  of  wars,  —  as  safe  without  a  cannon  or  a  fort  as  if 
they  were  in  the  center  of  this  great  land.  Long  may  this 
condition  continue!    Never  may  it  cease !    It  will  not  cease. 

If  ever  and  anywhere  two  peoples  should  live  together  in 
peace,  the  peoples  of  Canada  and  of  the  United  States 
should  illustrate  the  effect  of  generations  practicing  justice, 
obeying  law,  abhorring  war.  But,  my  friends,  this  condition 
will  not  continue  except  by  the  doing  of  the  things  which  are 
necessary  to  peace.  Not  governments,  today,  but  peoples, 
preserve  peace.  Governments  but  register  the  decrees  of 
democracies,  and  the  peoples  of  these  countries  whose 
borders  march  with  each  other  have  in  their  own  hands  the 
preservation  of  peace  and  have  resting  upon  themselves  the 
duty  of  doing  the  things  necessary  to  that  preservation. 

With  nations,  as  with  individuals,  the  laws  which  govern 
the  peace  of  a  community  obtain.  Nations  have  souls  and 
duties,  as  well  as  rights.  The  people  who  are  grasping  and 
arrogant  meet  the  same  fate  as  the  man  in  his  community 
who  is  grasping  and  arrogant.  The  people  who  insist  upon 
having  everything  that  the  most  extreme  view  of  their  rights 
or  their  desires  may  call  for,  have  themselves  to  blame  if 
strife  arises.  A  regard  for  the  rights  —  for  the  just  rights  — 
for  the  feelings,  for  the  sympathies  —  aye,  for  the  prejudices 
—  of  the  sister  people,  not  merely  with  the  President  at 
Washington  and  the  Governor-General  and  Premier  in 
Ottawa  and  the  Foreign  Office  in  London,  but  among  the 
people  of  the  United  States  and  of  Canada,  is  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  this  happy  condition. 


156  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

In  dealing  with  all  the  questions  that  exist  today,  and  with 
all  the  questions  which  will  continually  arise  in  the  years  and 
the  centuries  to  come,  our  people  have  resting  upon  them 
the  duty  to  be  just,  to  be  considerate,  to  be  not  grasping 
and  arrogant  but  to  deal  with  our  sister  people  as  a  just  and 
kindly  man  would  deal  with  his  neighbor  at  home.  If  the 
people  of  the  United  States  will  do  that,  and  the  people  of 
Canada  will  do  that,  then  never  shall  this  great  border 
bristle  again  with  guns,  never  shall  this  blessed  condition 
under  which  we  live  in  the  safety  of  one  people  be  disturbed, 
and  never  will  all  our  proud  boasts  of  love  for  liberty  and 
justice  and  peace  be  set  at  naught. 


THE  BUILDERS  OF  CANADA 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  STATE  AT  A  BANQUET 

OF  THE  CANADIAN  CLUB  OF  OTTAWA,  CANADA 

JANUARY  22,  1907 

I  THANK  you  for  your  most  cordial  and  friendly  greeting. 
I  beg  you  to  believe  that  I  am  deeply  sensible  of  the  honor 
conferred  upon  me  by  the  presence  at  this  luncheon  table  of 
the  Governor-General  and  the  Premier  of  Canada.  Another 
kindly  greeting  has  been  received  by  me,  since  I  took  my 
seat  at  the  table,  from  a  gentleman  who,  for  reasons  which 
you  will  readily  appreciate,  was  unable  to  obtain  a  seat  in  the 
room.  I  will  take  the  liberty  of  reading  it  to  you.  It  is  a 
telegraphic  dispatch  dated  Jamaica,  January  20,  received  in 
Washington  yesterday  and  repeated  to  me: 

Honorable  Elihu  Root, 

Secretary  of  State. 
Jamaica  profoundly   grateful   to  your  excellency  for  expression  of 
sympathy  and  for  the  very  practical  aid  so  kindly  given  by  Admiral  Davis 
and  the  entire  particular  service  squadron  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment. 

(Signed)  Governor  Swettenham. 

I  do  not  feel  at  all  a  stranger  here,  partly  perhaps  because 
in  your  climate  blood  has  to  be  thicker  than  water;  partly 
because  in  your  atmosphere  every  one  born  and  bred  under 
the  common  law  of  England  and  under  the  principles  of 
justice  and  liberty  that  the  English-speaking  race  has  car- 
ried the  world  over,  wherever  it  has  gone,  must  breathe 
freely.  It  is  a  full  forty  years  since  I  paid  my  first  visit  to 
Canada.  At  brief  intervals  during  all  that  period  I  have  been 
returning,  sometimes  to  one  part  of  the  Dominion  and  some- 
times to  another,  but  always  keeping  in  touch  with  the  course 

157 


158  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  your  development  and  with  the  trend  of  your  opinion  and 
spirit.  During  that  time  what  wonderful  things  we  have 
seen!  We  have  seen  feeble,  ill-compacted,  separate,  depen- 
dent colonies  growing  into  a  great  and  vigorous  nation.  We 
have  seen  the  two  branches  of  the  Canadian  people,  the 
English-speaking  and  the  French-speaking,  putting  behind 
them  old  resentments  and  steadily  approaching  each  other 
in  tightening  bonds  of  sympathy  and  national  fellowship  — 
a  happy  augury  for  the  continuance  of  that  entente  cordiale 
which  between  the  two  great  nations  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  is  making  for  the  peace  of  the  world.  We  have  seen 
not  merely  growth  in  population  and  in  wealth,  but  we  have 
seen  here  great  examples  of  constructive  power,  examples  of 
a  great  race  of  builders  who  have  made  and  are  making  and 
are  to  make  the  western  world  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
mankind.  The  spirit  of  the  Norse  sea-kings,  the  spirit  of  the 
great  navigators,  of  Columbus,  of  Vasco  da  Gama,  and  of 
Drake  and  Frobisher,  the  spirit  of  the  Spanish  conquista- 
dores,  the  spirit  of  men  of  power  and  might  who  have  been 
the  great  influences  in  the  world,  has  found  its  development 
in  this  western  hemisphere  in  the  great  builders,  and  within 
our  lives  we  have  seen  here  some  of  the  greatest  of  the  great 
building  men  of  constructive  power  and  energy.  We  have 
seen  and  are  seeing  now  the  growth  of  that  historic  sense,  the 
growth  among  the  people  of  that  appreciation  of  the  great 
examples  of  their  own  best  nature  which  is  so  essential  to  the 
making  of  a  nation;  and  as  you  are  drawing  away,  through 
the  course  of  successive  generations,  from  the  past,  the  great 
figures  of  the  makers  of  Canada  loom  up  more  and  still  more 
lofty.  The  courage,  the  fortitude,  the  heroism,  the  self- 
devotion  of  the  men  of  Canada's  early  time  stand  out  in 
historic  eminence  from  which  well  may  flow  the  deep  and 
unending  stream  of  a  great  national  patriotism.  Above  all, 
we  see  a  people  trained  and  training  themselves  in  the  art  of 


THE  BUILDERS  OF  CANADA  159 

self-government,  in  the  discussion  and  consideration  of  all 
public  questions,  not  only  in  the  high  seats  of  government, 
but  in  the  farmhouse  and  the  shop;  in  that  discussion  which 
lies  at  the  base  of  modern  civilization,  that  discussion 
which  among  the  plain  people,  furnishing  the  basis  for  polit- 
ical and  social  systems,  differentiates  our  later-day  civiliza- 
tion from  all  the  civilizations  of  the  past,  and  must  give  to 
it  a  perpetuity  that  no  civilization  of  the  past  has  had. 

Lord  Grey  has  very  kindly  furnished  me,  in  the  last  few 
days,  with  the  debate  which  has  been  going  on  in  your  House 
of  Commons  on  the  subject  of  the  fisheries  modus  vivendi. 
I  have  been  much  impressed  by  the  thoughtful,  temperate, 
and  statesmanlike  quality  which  has  been  conspicuous  in 
that  debate.  I  am  sure,  and  indeed  no  one  who  reads  the 
debate  can  doubt,  that  whatever  conclusion  your  Parlia- 
ment reaches  will  be  a  conclusion  dictated  by  sincere  and 
intelligent  and  right-minded  determination  to  fulfill  the  full 
duty  of  your  representatives  to  the  people  whose  rights  they 
are  bound  to  maintain  and  protect.  Whatever  the  con- 
clusion may  be,  however  much  any  may  differ  from  it,  all 
men  will  be  bound  to  respect  it.  The  existence  of  this  club, 
the  existence  of  similar  clubs  in  the  great  cities  throughout 
your  country,  is  an  augury,  a  good  omen,  for  the  future 
of  Canada.  That  intelligent  discussion  and  consideration  of 
public  questions  which  enable  the  men  who  are  not  in  office 
to  perform  their  duty  as  self -governors  is  a  solid  foundation 
for  a  nation  that  shall  endure. 

For  all  these  I  profess,  with  sincerity  and  with  feeling,  my 
admiration  and  my  sympathy;  and  I  speak  the  sentiment  of 
millions  of  my  own  countrymen  in  saying  that  we  look  upon 
the  great  material  and  spiritual  progress  of  Canada  with  no 
feelings  of  jealousy,  but  with  admiration,  with  hope,  and 
with  gratification.  I  count  myself  happy  to  be  one  of  those 
who  cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  glories  and  achievements  of 


160  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

the  race  from  which  they  spring.  And  with  my  pride  in  my 
own  land,  with  the  pride  that  it  is  a  part  of  my  inheritance 
to  take  in  England,  is  added  the  pride  that  I  feel  in  this  great, 
hardy,  vigorous,  self-governing  people  of  Canada,  who  love 
justice  and  liberty. 

There  have  been  in  the  past,  and  in  the  nature  of  things 
there  will  be  continually  arising  in  the  future,  matters  of 
difference  between  the  two  nations.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise, with  adjacent  seacoasts  and  more  than  three  thousand 
miles  of  boundary  upon  which  we  march  ?  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  in  the  nature  of  the  races  at  work  ?  Savage  nature 
is  never  subdued  to  the  uses  of  man,  empires  are  never 
builded,  save  by  men  of  vigor  and  power,  men  intense  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  objects,  strong  in  their  confidence  in  their 
own  opinions,  engrossed  in  the  pursuit  of  their  ends,  some- 
times even  to  the  exclusion  of  thoughtf ulness  for  the  interests 
and  feelings  of  others.  But  let  us  school  ourselves  and  teach 
our  children,  to  believe  that  whatever  differences  arise,  dif- 
ferent understandings  as  to  the  facts  on  different  sides  of  the 
boundary  line,  the  effect  of  different  environment,  different 
points  of  view,  rather  than  intentional  or  conscious  unfair- 
ness, are  at  the  base  of  the  differences.  After  all,  as  we  look 
back  over  the  records  of  history;  after  all,  in  the  far  view  of 
the  future,  all  the  differences  of  each  day  and  generation  are 
but  trifling  compared  with  the  great  fact  that  these  two 
nations  are  pursuing  the  same  ideals  of  liberty  and  justice, 
are  doing  their  work  side  by  side  for  the  peace  and  righteous- 
ness of  the  world  in  peace  with  each  other. 

The  differences  of  each  generation  loom  large,  held  close  to 
the  eye;  but,  after  all,  the  fact  that  for  ninety  years,  under 
a  simple  exchange  of  notes  limiting  the  armament  of  the  two 
countries,  in  terms  which  have  become  an  antiquated  example 
of  naval  literature,  to  single  100-ton  boats  with  single 
18-pound  cannon  —  after  all,  the  fact  that  for  ninety  years 


THE  BUILDERS  OF  CANADA  161 

under  that  simple  exchange  of  notes  we  have  been  living  on 
either  side  of  this  three  thousand  miles  of  boundary  in  peace, 
with  no  more  thought  or  fear  of  hostilities  than  if  we  were 
the  same  people,  is  a  great  fact  in  history  and  a  great  fact  of 
potential  import  for  the  future.  We  celebrate  great  victories. 
Anniversaries  of  great  single  events  call  together  crowds  and 
are  the  subject  of  inspiring  addresses.  Within  a  few  years  — 
eight  years  from  now  —  we  shall  be  able  to  celebrate  the 
centennial  anniversary  of  a  hundred  years  of  peaceful  fellow- 
ship —  a  hundred  years  during  which  no  part  of  the  fruits  of 
industry  and  enterprise  has  been  diverted  from  the  building 
up  of  peaceful  and  happy  homes,  from  the  exercise  and  pro- 
motion of  religion,  from  the  education  of  children  and  the 
succor  of  the  distressed  and  unfortunate,  to  be  expended  in 
warlike  attack  by  one  people  upon  the  other. 

In  the  meantime,  our  people  are  passing  in  great  numbers 
across  this  invisible  boundary,  Canadians  in  the  east  and 
Americans  in  the  west;  and  in  thousands  of  homes  they  and 
their  children  are  looking  back  from  American  hillsides  to  a 
Canadian,  and  from  Canadian  farms  to  an  American,  father- 
land. May  that  backward  look  of  loving  memory  never  be 
turned  to  the  hard  gaze  of  hostility,  of  fear,  or  of  revenge! 
I  ask  you,  my  friends,  to  join  me  in  a  sentiment:  To  the 
Canadian  settlers  in  New  England  and  the  American  settlers 
in  the  Canadian  West  —  may  they  ever,  with  loyal  memory, 
do  honor  to  the  lands  of  their  birth!  may  they  ever,  with 
loyal  citizenship,  do  God's  service  to  the  countries  of  their 
adoption ! 


THE  CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY 
AGREEMENT 

After  the  passage  of  the  Payne-Aldrich  tariff  law  in  1910,  President  Taft  secured 
the  consent  of  the  British  Government  to  enter  into  direct  negotiation  with  the 
Canadian  Government  with  a  view  to  reciprocal  tariff  adjustments.  Commissioners 
were  appointed  by  the  two  governments,  who  met  in  Washington  and  in  Ottawa 
to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  commercial  reciprocity.  In  January,  1911,  the  commis- 
sioners concluded  an  agreement  which  was  not  to  be  embodied  in  a  formal  treaty, 
but  was  to  come  into  effect  by  concurrent  legislation  at  Ottawa  and  Washington. 
Schedules  of  the  agreement  specified  (a)  a  number  of  articles  the  growth,  product, 
or  manufacture  of  the  United  States  to  be  admitted  into  Canada  free  of  duty  when 
imported  from  the  United  States,  and,  reciprocally,  a  number  of  articles  the  growth, 
product,  or  manufacture  of  Canada  to  be  admitted  into  the  United  States  free  of 
duty  when  imported  from  Canada;  (b)  a  number  of  articles  on  which  a  common 
rate  of  duty  would  be  imposed;  and  (c  and  d)  a  few  articles  subject  to  special  rates. 
The  bill  to  put  this  agreement  into  effect  passed  the  House  of  Representatives 
April  21,  1911,  and  passed  the  Senate,  July  22,  1911.  The  ensuing  campaign  in  the 
Dominion  of  Canada  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  Sir  Wilfred  Laurier's  Government, 
which  had  warmly  supported  the  agreement,  and  the  Conservative  Government 
which  succeeded  abandoned  the  project.  The  courts  have  decided  that  the  United 
States  reciprocity  act  was  repealed  by  implication  by  the  passage  of  the  Underwood 
Tariff  Act.  While  the  bill  to  promote  reciprocal  trade  relations  with  the  Dominion 
of  Canada  was  under  consideration  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Root,  on  June  21, 1911,  made 
the  following  elaborate  argument  in  favor  of  its  passage: 

ON  the  twenty-sixth  of  January  of  this  year  the  President 
sent  to  Congress  a  message  in  writing,  accompanied  by 
papers  entitled  "  Correspondence  embodying  an  agreement 
between  the  Department  of  State  and  the  Canadian  Govern- 
ment in  regard  to  reciprocal  tariff  legislation  ";  also  statistical 
data  to  show  the  effect  of  the  above  agreement  upon  the 
commerce  and  revenues  of  the  United  States  and  the  Domin- 
ion of  Canada. 

The  President  in  his  message  recommended  legislation  by 
Congress  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  agreement 
embodied  in  the  correspondence  thus  transmitted  by  him. 


164  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

The  bill  which  is  now  before  the  Senate,  House  Bill  No.  4412, 
is  entitled  "  An  act  to  promote  reciprocal  trade  relations  with 
the  Dominion  of  Canada,  and  for  other  purposes  ";  and 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  bill,  that  is  to  say,  down 
to  the  end  of  section  1,  on  the  twenty-third  page,  the  bill 
does  follow  the  agreement  which  is  described  as  between  the 
Department  of  State  and  the  Canadian  Government  in 
regard  to  reciprocal  tariff  legislation. 

The  action  of  the  President  in  bringing  before  Congress 
this  subject  affecting  the  foreign  relations  of  the  United 
States  in  this  manner  has  been  the  subject  of  criticism  to 
some  extent  in  the  public  press  and  to  some  extent  upon  the 
floor  of  either  House  of  Congress.  I  should  not  refer  to  this 
criticism  were  it  not  that  it  has  received  the  dignity  and  au- 
thority derived  from  the  advocacy  of  the  distinguished  senior 
Senator  from  Minnesota  [Mr.  Nelson],  whose  solid  and 
sterling  qualities  we  all  recognize  and  admire. 

I  wish  to  submit  to  the  Senate,  sir,  that  the  President  has 
followed  a  course  in  bringing  this  subject  before  Congress 
which  was  entirely  within  his  power,  which  was  in  accordance 
with  precedents,  and  which  was  strictly  in  accordance  with 
official  propriety. 

The  agreement  between  the  Department  of  State  and  the 
Canadian  Government  has  been  spoken  of  as  a  treaty.  It 
is  in  no  sense  a  treaty.  It  is  one  of  those  informal,  tem- 
porary, and  preliminary  arrangements  between  the  executive 
branches  of  two  Governments  which  are  exceedingly  com- 
mon and  which  are  necessary  for  the  effective  conduct  of 
negotiations  regarding  international  affairs. 

For  example,  in  the  year  1899,  when  the  dispute  between 
this  country  and  Great  Britain  regarding  the  Alaskan  boun- 
dary was  at  its  height,  the  State  Department  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  the  Government  of  Great  Britain  fixing  the 
line  on  either  side  of  which  the  jurisdiction  of  the  respective 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        165 

countries  should  be  recognized  until  such  time  should  elapse 
as  to  make  it  possible  for  a  final  and  definitive  settlement  of 
the  controversy  to  be  reached.  That  was  not  a  treaty.  It 
destroyed  no  property  or  jurisdiction  and  it  created  none, 
but  it  was  a  necessary  arrangement  in  order  that  while 
the  two  Governments,  through  their  constitutional  treaty- 
making  powers,  were  settling  the  question,  there  might  not 
be  controversy  and  bloodshed.  That  controversy  was  ulti- 
mately settled  by  a  treaty  between  the  two  countries  for 
a  tribunal  to  hear  and  determine  the  question,  and  that 
question  has  been  heard  and  determined  and  has  passed 
into  history. 

In  1906,  when  the  controversy  as  to  the  rights  of  our  fisher- 
men upon  the  treaty  coast  of  Newfoundland  was  rife,  the 
department  of  State  and  the  Government  of  Great  Britain 
entered  into  an  agreement  as  to  what  the  colonial  authorities 
of  Newfoundland  should  be  permitted  to  do  and  should  not 
do,  as  to  what  American  fishermen  should  do  and  should 
not  do.  It  was  not  a  treaty,  but  it  was  an  agreement  between 
these  executive  branches  of  the  two  Governments  temporary 
and  preliminary  to  a  final  settlement,  so  that  there  might  not 
be  strife  and  actual  conflict  pending  the  settlement,  and  it  held 
a  condition  of  peace  until  by  a  treaty  between  the  two  coun- 
tries and  an  arbitration  the  question  was  finally  disposed  of. 

Mr.  President,  it  makes  no  difference  whatever  whether 
the  question  is  to  be  settled  by  treaty  or  by  legislation,  so 
long  as  there  is  a  question  and  it  is  deemed  desirable  by  the 
executive  authority  charged  with  the  conduct  of  negotiations, 
that  there  shall  be  a  preliminary  arrangement  until  a  final 
decision  shall  be  reached  upon  the  question  by  the  duly  con- 
stituted and  empowered  authorities  of  the  two  countries;  it 
makes  no  difference  whether  those  authorities  who  are  to 
settle  the  question  are  the  Senate  with  the  President  or  the 
Senate  with  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  President, 


166  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

whether  the  settlement  is  to  come  by  the  making  of  a  treaty 
or  to  come  by  the  making  of  concurrent  laws  by  the  two 
countries. 

This  agreement,  Mr.  President,  is  of  a  still  lower  and  milder 
form  than  the  agreements  to  which  I  have  referred.    It  does 
not  in  its  terms,  as  did  those  agreements,  bind  the  Govern- 
ments of  the  countries  at  all.    It  does  not  bind  the  United 
States  nor  Great  Britain  nor  Canada.    It  does  not  bind  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  nor  that  of  Great  Britain 
nor  that  of  Canada.    It  is  merely  an  agreement  relating  to 
the  course  of  conduct  which  will  be  followed  by  the  President 
and  the  State  Department  on  the  one  hand  and  the  adminis- 
tration in  Canada  on  the  other,  a  thing  which  is  done  every 
day,  without  which  the  business  of  negotiation  between  dif- 
ferent countries  and   the   diplomatic  intercourse  between 
different  countries  cannot  be  pursued.    If  a  president  or  a 
secretary  of  state  or  a  minister  of  foreign  affairs  cannot  say 
what  he  will  do,  cannot  bind  himself  regarding  his  conduct, 
if  he  cannot  say,  "  I  will  answer  your  letter  tomorrow  ";   if 
he  cannot  say  "  I  will  give  you  an  audience   next  week 
Thursday";    if  he  cannot  say,  "No  action  will  be  taken 
upon  this  until  such  time  as  you  shall  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity for  an  interview  and  hearing  ",  why,  then,  business 
cannot  go  on.     This  agreement,  I  repeat,  is  but  the  most 
ordinary  example  of  a  class  of  assurance  given  by  the  diplo- 
matic officers  of  one  country  to  the  diplomatic  officers  of 
another  regarding  their  own  conduct. 

Now,  the  President  has  in  a  great  measure  executed  the 
agreement  that  he  made,  by  the  recommendation  which  he 
has  sent  to  Congress;  and  when  the  matter  comes  before 
Congress  it  has  no  element  of  a  treaty.  There  is  no  treaty. 
There  is  a  recommendation  from  the  President  with  the  in- 
formation that  Canada,  in  case  we  comply  with  his  recom- 
mendation, is  ready  to  enact  similar  legislation  on  her  part. 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        167 

What  is  now  before  us  is  a  bill  which  stands  upon  the  same 
basis  as  all  other  bills  to  be  considered  and  to  be  enacted  by 
the  legislative  power  of  our  Government. 

This  bill  might  have  been  the  product  of  a  treaty.  The 
President,  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  might 
have  made  a  treaty,  under  which  there  would  have  been  an 
agreement  to  submit  this  legislation  to  Congress.  He  did  not 
do  so.  There  would  have  been  no  object  in  his  doing  so,  be- 
cause it  would  have  resulted  merely  in  making  the  same  sub- 
mission to  the  legislative  power  which  is  now  made.  He  has 
taken  the  simple,  direct,  natural,  and  proper  course  in  making 
this  recommendation  to  Congress  in  accordance  with  his  con- 
stitutional authority,  and  acting  in  good  faith,  pursuant  to 
the  agreement  which  he  made  regarding  his  own  conduct  and 
in  accordance  with  his  right,  with  precedent,  and  with 
propriety. 

Mr.  President,  the  agreement  which  was  submitted  to  Con- 
gress by  the  President  meets  with  my  approval.  There  were 
many  reasons  why  it  naturally  appealed  to  me  and  why  my 
first  impulses  were  to  favor  it,  because  by  long  years  of  labor 
in  the  direction  of  the  settlement  of  differences  and  the  pro- 
motion of  kindly  and  friendly  feelings  between  this  country 
and  Canada,  I  have  acquired  that  habit  of  mind.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  I  was  at  the  beginning,  and  always  have  been  and 
am  now,  in  favor  of  giving  effect  to  the  President's  recom- 
mendation for  the  reciprocal  arrangements  with  Canada. 

But,  Mr.  President,  I  have  not  been  permitted  to  maintain 
that  view  in  any  complacent  or  untroubled  mood.  It  has 
been  impossible  for  me  so  to  steel  myself  against  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  farmers  of  northern  New  York  and  of  the  paper- 
making  communities  of  northern  New  York,  in  which  tens  of 
thousands  of  people  are  dependent  upon  that  industry,  that  I 
could  hold  my  course  in  support  of  this  reciprocity  agreement 
without  disturbance  and  solicitude. 


168  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

The  farmers  of  northern  New  York,  more  in  number  than 
the  entire  inhabitants  of  many  of  the  states  represented  in 
this  chamber,  are  in  a  great  measure  opposed  to  this  agree- 
ment, and  they  have  by  thousands  of  communications  to  me 
made  their  opposition  known.  They  fear  that  it  will  result  in 
the  reduction  of  the  price  of  their  products  and  in  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  value  of  their  lands,  and  in  making  harder  the 
severe  conditions  of  their  lives.  I  cannot  but  be  affected  by 
their  representations.  They  are  the  people  among  whom  I 
was  born  and  grew  to  manhood,  among  whom  I  live,  and 
I  would  not  have  them  feel  that  I  am  unmindful  of  their 
interests;  nor,  Mr.  President,  can  I  be  indifferent  to  the 
speeches  which  I  have  heard  here  in  this  chamber  —  speeches 
made  by  old  and  tried  associates,  upon  whose  sincerity  I 
would  stake  everything  I  possess,  for  whose  judgment  I  have 
respect,  and  with  whose  deep  and  evident  feelings  I  have 
sympathy.  But,  Mr.  President,  nevertheless,  I  do  still 
believe  that  the  enactment  of  this  reciprocal  agreement  with 
Canada  is  for  the  best  and  the  permanent  interest  of  our 
country,  and  I  must  be  for  it. 

I  think,  sir,  that  my  friends,  the  farmers  in  New  York  and 
the  farmers  all  along  the  northern  border,  are  unduly  appre- 
hensive. I  think  that  they  have  greatly  exaggerated  in  their 
own  minds  the  injury  which  will  come  to  them  from  the 
enactment  of  this  measure.  It  is  but  natural  that  they 
should.  All  experience  in  the  enactment  of  tariff  laws  indi- 
cates that  those  whose  business  is  to  be  affected  greatly  exag- 
gerate the  injury  which  they  apprehend  from  any  legislation 
that  at  all  reduces  the  measure  of  protection  which  they  have 
had;  and  if  it  be  true,  as  would  appear  from  the  report  of  the 
hearings  before  the  Committee  on  Finance,  that  an  organized 
effort  has  been  made,  with  agents  or  attorneys  employed  to 
circulate  among  the  farmers  of  the  country  statements  of  the 
injury  that  will  be  done  to  them,  in  order  to  arouse  them  to 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        169 

opposition  to  this  bill,  it  follows  necessarily  that  the  argu- 
ments would  lose  nothing  in  the  telling,  and  that  to  every 
farmer  would  come  a  tale  of  apprehension  and  of  anticipated 
injury,  painted  in  the  most  vivid  colors.  So  that  it  is  but 
natural  that  this  feeling  should  exist;  but  I  think  it  is  greatly 
exaggerated. 

The  apprehension  of  injury,  which  is  natural  to  any  class 
of  producers  as  to  whom  there  is  a  proposal  to  reduce  the 
tariff,  is  very  readily  to  be  answered  by  the  fact  that  the  two 
countries  are  under  substantially  the  same  conditions.  There 
may  be  little  differences  in  labor  cost  here  and  there,  but,  in 
general,  by  and  large,  the  labor  conditions  of  Canada  and  the 
labor  conditions  of  the  United  States  are  the  same.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  competing  with  the  familiar  adversary,  the 
pauper  labor  of  Europe.  The  two  countries  are  similar  in 
their  social  conditions,  in  their  laws,  in  their  manner  of  doing 
business,  of  thinking  and  of  acting,  in  their  individual  inde- 
pendence, and  in  their  power  to  maintain  their  wage  scale; 
and  the  proposal  to  take  down  the  tariff  wall  between  Canada 
and  the  United  States,  in  so  far  as  it  is  taken  down  by  this 
reciprocity  agreement,  is  much  more  like  the  taking  down  of  a 
tariff  wall  between  two  states  than  it  is  the  taking  down 
of  a  tariff  wall  between  the  United  States  and  the  countries 
of  Europe;  and,  for  reasons  which  I  shall  give  presently, 
I  think  that  any  ill  effect  that  may  be  produced  upon  any  of 
our  farmers  will  be  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the 
advantages  which  they  will  derive  in  common  with  the  whole 
American  people  from  the  enactment  of  the  bill. 

Mr.  President,  I  could  not  be  indifferent  to  what  has  been 
said  upon  this  floor  as  to  the  effect  of  this  measure  upon  the 
general  policy  of  protection.  We  have  been  told  here  that  if 
this  bill  be  passed  it  will  drive  a  wedge  into  the  protective 
system  that  now  obtains,  will  rend  it  asunder,  will  split  it  into 
pieces,  and  will  destroy  it.    We  have  been  told  that  if  this 


170  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

bill  passes,  the  farmers  of  the  Northwest  will  see  to  it  that  the 
manufacturers  of  New  York  and  Massachusetts  and  Pennsyl- 
vania suffer  in  their  turn.  These  are  serious  propositions, 
Mr.  President,  for  one  who  believes,  as  I  believe,  that  the 
policy  of  protection  has  played  a  great  part  in  the  building 
up  of  the  prosperity  and  the  happiness  of  our  country,  and 
who  believes,  as  I  believe,  that  to  continue  the  policy  of 
moderate  protection,  reasonable  protection,  based  upon  ascer- 
tained facts,  is  of  high  importance  to  the  future  prosperity 
and  happiness  of  our  country. 

A  serious  picture  is  presented  to  us  by  these  declarations 
coming  from  men  whose  sincerity  we  respect;  but,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, it  appears  to  me  that  throughout  this  whole  discussion, 
and  very  much  of  late  in  other  discussions  in  this  chamber 
which  have  touched  upon  tariff  questions,  there  has  been  al- 
ways a  suppressed  premise  —  an  assumption  never  stated 
but  always  present  —  that  what  we  make  tariff  laws  for  is  to 
benefit  the  manufacturer  or  the  miner  or  the  farmer  or 
whoever  may  be  engaged  in  the  industry  that  we  protect. 

I  say  there  is  running  through  the  discussion  of  this  subject 
the  assumption  that  we  make  tariff  laws  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  who  are  engaged  in  the  industries.  That  I  deny.  We 
make,  or  we  ought  to  make,  no  law  for  the  benefit  of  any  man 
or  any  group  of  men.  We  care  no  more,  Mr.  President, 
neither  you  nor  I,  nor  the  Senators  about  me,  for  any  manu- 
facturer, great  or  small,  of  any  article,  be  it  steel  or  wool  or 
cotton  or  what-not,  or  for  any  miner,  whatever  he  may  be 
taking  from  the  earth,  or  for  any  farmer,  or  for  any  granger 
upon  this  earth  than  we  care  for  the  men  who  are  using  their 
products.    And  we  do  not  protect  them  for  their  benefit. 

We  pass  all  laws  putting  protection  on  the  products  of 
industry  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  American  people,  and  if 
we  cannot  sustain  the  imposition  of  a  duty  upon  that  ground, 
then  it  ought  not  to  be  imposed.    If  we  do  legislate  for  the 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT       171 

benefit  of  the  people  engaged  in  any  particular  industry,  then 
we  are  perverting  our  powers;  we  are  false  to  our  duty. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  because  for  the  moment,  for  the  time 
being,  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  come  —  many  of 
them,  I  hope  not  all,  but  many  of  them  —  to  believe  that  we 
have  forgotten  this  primary  and  fundamental  rule  of  tariff 
legislation,  because  they  have  been  led  —  misled,  I  believe  — 
into  the  conviction  that  we  have  been  legislating  for  partic- 
ular men  or  particular  groups  of  men  instead  of  legislating 
for  the  interests  of  the  whole  country,  that  the  people  over- 
turned the  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the 
last  election  and  very  nearly,  and  in  a  certain  sense  altogether, 
changed  the  political  complexion  of  the  Senate. 

Mr.  President,  when  my  friends,  who  declare  that  this  legis- 
lation, if  it  be  enacted,  will  be  the  death  blow  of  protection, 
and  their  constituents,  in  the  cool  afterthought,  consider,  as 
they  will  consider,  the  interests  of  the  whole  people,  they  will 
forget  their  revenges,  and  they  will  vote  in  accordance  with 
their  principles,  under  the  guidance  of  their  love  of  their 
country,  for  protection  or  against  protection,  and  if  for  pro- 
tection for  such  measure  of  protection  as  they  believe  will 
help  not  the  manufacturers  of  New  York  or  Massachusetts, 
but  the  whole  people  of  our  country. 

Mr.  McCumber.  Does  the  Senator  believe  that  while  the 
public  may  forget  their  revenges  in  forgetting  they  will  lose 
their  sense  of  justice  and  equal  justice  to  all  the  people  ? 

Mr.  Root.  I  do  not.  I  count  on  their  keeping  it,  and  I 
know  they  will  keep  it  and  will  act  under  their  sense  of  jus- 
tice, a  sense  of  justice  to  the  whole  people  of  the  United 
States.  Mr.  President,  let  me  say  this:  No  economic  sys- 
tem, be  it  for  protection,  be  it  for  a  tariff  for  revenue,  be  it 
for  free  raw  materials  and  high  duties  upon  finished  products 
—  no  economic  system  can  stand  upon  any  other  basis  than 
that  which  I  am  pressing  as  a  necessary  basis  on  which  we 


172  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

must  act  regarding  this  legislation  and  on  which  my  friends 
who  are  opposing  this  legislation  ultimately  will  act. 

I  believe  a  reasonable  policy  of  protection  is  beneficial  to 
our  country;  I  believe  it  tends  to  make  it  more  prosperous, 
more  happy,  more  useful  in  the  world,  and  that  it  provides  a 
better  home  for  our  people,  with  greater  opportunities  for 
every  one  of  us.  But,  Mr.  President,  I  know  that  that  view 
of  protection  cannot  prevail  if  protection  is  to  be  rested  by 
its  advocates  upon  a  system  of  bargain  and  trade.  I  believe 
in  protection,  but  I  wish  to  buy  no  man's  vote  for  it.  If  the 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  is  better  for  the  country  to  abandon  protec- 
tion and  establish  a  revenue  tariff  or  free  trade  —  under  any 
name  whatever  —  then  let  them  do  it,  and  I  for  one  will 
put  out  no  hand  to  stay  them  by  bargaining  and  trading  the 
respective  private  interests  of  different  parts  of  our  country. 
If  they  are  wrong  in  abandoning  protection,  then  they  will 
find  it  out  and  come  back.  If  they  are  right  in  abandoning 
protection,  then  we  will  confess  our  error,  according  to  the 
outcome. 

And,  Mr.  President,  if  we  have  so  sinned  against  the  duty 
of  keeping  always  an  eye  single  to  the  interests  of  all  our 
country  as  to  leave  the  system  of  protection  to  be  tried  not 
upon  its  merits,  but  upon  its  abuses,  then  we  must  endure  the 
tribulation  that  is  to  come  upon  us  before  the  hard  lesson  is 
learned  that  there  is  a  sound  and  impregnable  basis  for  a  pro- 
tective tariff  law  which  concerns  no  private  or  individual  in- 
terest, but  concerns  the  power  and  prosperity  and  happiness 
of  our  whole  country. 

I  wish  to  say  one  word  further  with  special  reference  to  the 
effect  of  this  law  upon  the  farmer.  If  I  were  at  home  I 
would  say  it  in  private  conversation  to  my  farmer  friends 
about  me  in  the  country,  and  that  is  this :  The  taking  off  of 
the  duty  on  farm  products  between  this  country  and  Canada, 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        173 

while  it  will  in  a  technical  sense,  a  strict  sense,  be  accom- 
plished by  the  passage  of  this  bill, nevertheless  was  inevitable; 
and  if  it  did  not  come  in  this  bill  it  would  come  in  its  own 
way  by  ordinary  tariff  legislation. 

No  one  can  mistake,  no  one  ought  so  to  blind  himself  as  to 
mistake,  the  changed  feeling  of  the  people  of  this  country 
regarding  the  tariff  as  exhibited  by  the  election  of  last  fall, 
and  not  only  by  the  election  of  last  fall,  but  exhibited  in 
ten  thousand  expressions  all  over  the  country  and  exhibited 
in  the  highest  degree  by  the  possibility  of  this  reciprocal 
arrangement. 

No  one  may  suppose  that  this  arrangement  could  be  made 
by  the  President,  carried  through  the  House,  certain  of  pas- 
sage here  in  the  Senate,  if  there  were  not  a  great  public 
opinion  behind  it.  What  we  say  here  is  of  little  consequence. 
Our  arguments  do  not  advance  or  retard  it.  It  is  moving 
along  with  a  public  opinion  behind  it. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  no  one  here  who  believes  that  there 
is  the  least  possibility  that  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
until  another  revolution  of  sentiment  has  come,  will  permit 
the  cost  of  their  living  to  be  increased  by  the  imposition  of  a 
duty  on  ordinary  food-stuffs.  .  .  . 

Mr.  President,  I  have  stated  my  view  regarding  the  in- 
evitable result  of  the  process  which  is  now  going  on  upon  the 
system  of  food  duties.  I  never  have  thought  that  the  duties 
which  were  imposed  upon  farm  products  were  of  any  real 
general  benefit  to  the  farmer.  They  have  been  quite  indif- 
ferent, affecting  only  several  localities  here  and  there,  so  long 
as  our  production  ran  far  ahead  of  our  consumption.  But, 
with  the  increase  of  our  cities  as  compared  with  our  farming 
population  and  the  using  up  of  our  waste  lands  and  the  fenc- 
ing in  of  old  cattle  ranges  and  the  reduction  of  the  productive 
power  of  our  land,  we  have  about  come  to  the  point  where  the 
continuance  of  those  duties,  instead  of  being  a  matter  of 


174  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

indifference  to  the  people  of  the  country,  would  result  in 
putting  up  the  cost  of  food. 

I  am  not  arguing  the  question.  I  am  simply  stating  a 
reason  why  the  farmers  should  not  consider  that  this  recipro- 
city arrangement  is  doing  them  any  particular  harm,  because 
it  is  something  that  is  sure  to  come  to  them  anyway.  — 

Mr.  McCumber.  Does  the  Senator  believe  it  would  be  a 
bad  condition  to  arrive  at  when  consumption  and  production 
were  about  equalized  with  each  other  ?  Does  he  not  believe, 
on  the  contrary,  that  we  would  get  nearer  an  element  of  jus- 
tice upon  the  price  of  the  article  sold  and  the  price  that  is 
paid  for  it,  upon  the  energy  expended  in  producing  the  article 
and  the  energy  expended  in  securing  the  money  to  purchase 
it  ?  Does  the  Senator  really  feel  that  there  would  be  an  in- 
justice to  the  consumers  if  the  farmers  produced  just  about 
what  the  consumers  needed;  and  will  not  the  Senator  agree 
with  me  that  today  it  takes  a  great  deal  more  expended 
energy  upon  the  farm  to  produce  a  bushel  of  wheat  than  it 
takes  in  the  factory  or  elsewhere  to  buy  the  flour  that  is  in 
that  wheat  ?    Is  not  that  a  correct  proposition  ? 

Mr.  Root.  There  are  several  propositions  involved  in 
what  the  Senator  has  said.  As  to  his  first  question,  about  the 
result  of  production  and  consumption.  I  think  it  is  desirable 
to  have  a  production  for  export.  So  long  as  we  have  any 
money  to  spend  abroad  we  will  spend  it,  notwithstanding  the 
vigilance  of  the  customs  authorities.  We  will  expend  some 
of  it,  at  all  events,  and  I  think  it  is  a  good  thing  to  keep  the 
balance  of  trade  in  our  favor.  So  I  like  to  see  a  surplus  of 
production. 

As  to  the  other  question,  I  do  not  think  that  I  quite  under- 
stand it. 

Mr.  McCumber.  My  proposition,  I  will  say  to  the  Sena- 
tor, was  simply  that  it  requires  far  more  labor  on  the  farm  to 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        175 

produce  the  wheat  that  goes  into  a  loaf  of  bread  than  it  re- 
quires in  the  city  to  earn  the  value  of  that  loaf  of  bread. 

Mr.  Root.    I  am  inclined  to  think  that  is  true. 

Mr.  McCumber.  Then  should  not  the  law,  in  so  far  as  the 
law  affects  the  value  of  the  property,  tend  rather  to  equalize 
this  condition  than  to  cheapen  the  product  of  the  farm  for  the 
benefit  of  the  person  in  the  city  who  purchases  it  ? 

Mr.  Root.  No;  I  do  not  think  it  is  our  business  to  equalize 
that  condition  by  law.  I  think  that  is  a  matter  of  trade, 
which  should  be  equalized  by  the  natural  forces  which 
govern  trade. 

Mr.  McCumber.  Have  we  not  been  equalizing  those 
conditions  by  our  protective  system,  and  is  not  the  whole 
argument  of  protection  based  upon  the  idea  that  we  do 
equalize  our  conditions  as  against  the  conditions  of  the 
foreign  markets  ? 

Mr.  Root.  That  is  an  entirely  different  question,  Mr. 
President.  It  is  not  that  we  equalize  trade  conditions  as 
between  ourselves.  We  have  never  undertaken  to  do  that 
by  our  tariff  legislation,  and  I  do  not  think  we  ever  shall 
undertake  to  do  it. 

Mr.  Reed.  Do  I  understand  the  Senator  to  say  he  con- 
cedes the  point  that  it  takes  more  labor  to  produce  a  loaf  of 
bread  than  to  earn  the  money  to  buy  it  in  a  city  ? 

Mr.  Root.    I  said  I  was  inclined  to  think  that  was  true. 

Mr.  Reed.  I  differ  very  strongly  from  the  Senator  on  that 
point. 

Mr.  Root.  I  may  be  wrong.  I  do  not  make  myself  re- 
sponsible for  the  statement,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is 
true  that  it  takes  less  labor  to  earn  the  money  to  buy  a  loaf 
of  bread  in  the  city  than  it  does  to  raise  the  loaf  of  bread  in 
the  country  —  that  is,  that  less  money  goes  to  the  producer. 
Of  course,  there  may  be,  and  frequently  is,  any  amount  of 


176  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

putting  up  of  price  through  successive  middlemen,  who 
destroy  the  relation  between  the  producer's  reward  for  his 
labor  and  the  consumer's  cost  for  the  article  which  he  con- 
sumes. The  great  problem  of  distribution,  of  bringing  the 
products  from  the  original  producer  to  the  consumer  is  a 
subject  which  very  much  needs  attention,  but  it  is  no  part  of 
a  tariff  law  or  a  reciprocity  agreement  with  Canada. 

Mr.  Martine.  I  want  to  ask  the  honorable  Senator  from 
New  York  if  it  is  not  his  admission  here,  from  what  he  has 
just  stated,  that  the  farmer  has  received  no  benefit  from  the 
tariff;  that  he,  in  other  words,  has  been  hoodwinked  with  the 
idea  that  the  protective  tariff  was  protecting  him  ?  Is  not 
that  your  statement,  sir  ? 

Mr.  Root.  Mr.  President,  the  distinguished  Senator 
from  New  Jersey  puts  a  question  to  me  and  then  puts  a  gloss 
on  his  question. 

Mr.  Martine.  I  want  it  glossed  so  that  the  Senator  will 
not  get  away  from  it. 

Mr.  Root.  Yes;  but  the  Senator  from  New  Jersey  must 
not  hoodwink  my  answer. 

Mr.  Martine.    I  have  no  disposition  to  do  that. 

Mr.  Root.  I  must  be  permitted  to  answer  the  question  of 
the  Senator,  because  a  question  put  by  him  is  always  entitled 
to  respectful  consideration.  I  think  that  here  and  there,  at 
certain  localities  along  the  border,  farmers  have  been  bene- 
fited by  protection  on  their  food  products.  I  do  not  think 
that  as  a  class  in  general  up  to  this  time  or  until  perhaps 
within  a  very  short  period,  the  protection  upon  food  products 
has  been  of  any  real  advantage  to  the  farmer.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  Senator  from  New  Jersey  is  justified  in  inferring  from 
that  that  the  farmers  have  been  hoodwinked.  I  think  that 
the  farmers  have,  upon  their  own  good  judgment,  believed 
that  it  was  beneficial  to  them  to  have  this  duty,  probably 
more  because  they  were  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  it 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT       177 

would  be  useful  for  them  than  that  they  thought  it  had 
already  been  useful  for  them  as  a  class. 

Mr.  Martine.  The  farmers  have  been  looking  for  forty- 
odd  years  for  the  magnificent  dream  and  the  rainbow  that 
was  to  come.  But  each  year  the  struggle  for  the  bread-and- 
butter  winner  and  toiler  has  grown  harder  and  harder  and 
more  bitter,  while  they  have  seen  their  farms  sold  out  under 
foreclosure  and  the  manufacturers  growing  wealthy  beyond 
the  dreams  of  avarice.  Hence  the  farmers  of  this  land  have 
held  up  their  hands  to  God  and  said,  "  Pray,  how  long!  " 
and  the  last  election  decreed  that  it  would  be  short.  I  can 
say  to  the  distinguished  Senator  from  my  neighboring  state, 
in  which  I  was  born,  that  your  day  of  promise  is  too  far  off 
with  your  Republican  talk  of  protection,  and  we  want  no 
more  of  it. 

Mr.  Root.  Mr.  President,  I  am  glad  the  Senator  from 
New  Jersey  has  completed  his  question.  He  really  ought  not, 
under  permission  to  put  a  question,  make  my  poor,  dull  re- 
marks the  matrix  in  which  shall  shine  the  bright  jewels  of  his 
eloquence. 

Mr.  President,  let  me  now  pass  to  what  seems  to  me  to  be 
the  general  and  controlling  consideration  affecting  this 
reciprocity  agreement.  I  have  always  thought  that  the  sur- 
render of  the  right  to  impose  tariff  duties  against  each  other 
by  the  original  thirteen  states  was  the  most  valuable  act 
forming  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  our  government.  I 
have  always  thought  that  that  played  a  greater  part  in  the 
prosperity  and  progress  and  friendly  intercourse  of  our 
states  than  any  other  thing  that  they  did  or  refrained  from 
doing  in  forming  the  government  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  President,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  existence  of  a  politi- 
cal line  between  Canada  and  the  United  States  does  not  mili- 
tate at  all  against  the  proposition  that  in  like  manner  the 
taking  down  of  the  tariff  wall  between  these  two  kindred 


178  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

states,  these  two  communities  of  people  speaking  the  same 
language,  living  under  the  same  system  of  law,  with  the 
same  wage  scale  in  general,  the  same  habits  of  thought  and 
action,  the  same  methods  of  conducting  business,  as  similar 
in  all  respects  as  the  people  of  the  thirteen  states  were  to 
each  other,  will  bring  the  same  benefits  to  the  people  of  both 
countries. 

Mr.  Clark.  I  suppose  the  Senator  has  considered,  perhaps 
from  that  point  of  view,  the  difference  that  exists  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States  with  relation  to  the  imports 
from  other  countries  which  does  not  exist  between  the  several 
states  of  the  Union.  I  should  like  to  have  the  Senator's  view 
upon  that  point. 

Mr.  Root.  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  think  that  that  at  all 
affects  the  general  proposition  which  I  am  making.  I  can  see 
that  the  fact  that  Canada  has  a  different  tariff  from  the 
United  States,  as  against  the  people  of  all  outside  countries, 
may  prove  an  embarrassment  in  detail;  but  as  to  the  general 
proposition  that  the  utmost  freedom  —  the  greatest  possible 
freedom  —  of  trade  between  Canada  and  the  United  States 
will  bring  to  both  countries  the  same  great  blessings  that  it 
has  brought  to  the  different  states  of  our  Union,  I  think  this 
matter  of  detail  plays  no  part  whatever.  I  do  not  think,  Mr. 
President,  that  the  people  of  New  York  have  been  injured 
because  there  was  full  and  free  trade  between  them  and  the 
people  of  Pennsylvania.  I  do  not  think  the  people  of  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  and  Massachusetts 
have  been  injured  in  the  long  run,  by  and  large,  by  the  open- 
ing up  of  the  great  wheat  and  corn  fields  of  the  western 
prairies  and  the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri,  and 
the  plains,  and  the  Pacific.  I  think  that  while  they  may  have 
been  required  to  change  the  character  of  their  crops  here  and 
there,  while  they  have  been  hindered  here  in  a  particular 
respect  or  there  in  a  particular  respect,  the  fact  that  they, 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT       179 

with  their  farms  and  their  farmhouses,  their  fields  and  their 
crops,  were  part  of  the  great  activity,  having  available  to 
them  the  vast  and  effective  machinery  of  a  great  and  pow- 
erful and  prosperous  country,  has  overborne  and  counter- 
balanced a  hundred  times  over  any  harm  that  has  come 
to  them  from  the  freest  competition  on  the  part  of  these 
other  communities. 

Mr.  Dixon.  I  have  agreed  with  many  things  the  Senator 
has  said.  I  would  not  object  strongly  to  vote  for  absolute  free 
trade  between  Canada  and  the  United  States.  But  the  Sena- 
tor omits  the  basic  criticism  of  the  Republican  Senators  here 
who  are  in  opposition  to  this  treaty;  that  is,  the  rank  injus- 
tice of  making  free  trade  in  agricultural  products  alone  and 
still  leaving  tariff  duties  and  tariff  walls  between  the  two 
countries  on  manufactured  articles.  That  is  what  we  com- 
plain of,  and  that  is  what  I  should  like  the  Senator  from  New 
York  to  elucidate  with  his  wonderful  ability. 

Mr.  Root.  It  is  quite  plain,  and  it  is  a  fact  —  if  it  were  not 
plain  upon  the  papers,  I  think  that  we  all  of  us  know  — that 
Canada  was  unable  to  go  further  than  she  did  go  in  her  recip- 
rocal agreement  regarding  manufactured  products,  and  we 
are  left,  therefore,  in  this  position,  that  while  our  reciprocal 
legislation,  that  is,  our  legislation  reducing  certain  duties  in 
consideration  of  Canada's  legislation  reducing  certain  duties, 
goes  only  to  the  mark  to  which  Canada  could  be  brought  in 
the  agreement  —  the  mark  to  which  she  found  herself  able  to 
go  in  the  agreement  —  nevertheless  we  are  at  liberty  quite 
independently  of  that  reciprocal  agreement  to  go  on  and 
reduce  or  take  off  any  other  duties  that  we  see  fit. 

Mr.  President,  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  American  people 
will  stand  for  doing  whatever  is  just,  and  I  do  not  want  to 
prevent  their  doing  whatever  is  just.  If  it  is  just  and  for  the 
best  interests  of  the  whole  country  that  the  duties  on  the 
manufactured  products  of  New  York  should  be  cut  down,  let 


180  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

them  be  cut  down.  That  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  pass 
this  reciprocity  agreement.    That  is  my  view  about  it. 

Mr.  President,  I  wish  to  hasten  to  a  conclusion.  I  have 
said  that  I  think  the  same  great  benefits  will  come  from  freer 
trade  with  Canada  that  came  to  our  states  from  tearing 
down  the  tariff  walls  between  each  other. 

Mr.  Williams.  I  do  not  want  to  interrupt  the  argument  of 
the  Senator  from  New  York;  I  am  very  much  interested  in  it; 
but  I  should  like  to  ask  him  a  question.  Does  he  not  think  that 
this  agreement,  even  though  it  does  not  go  to  the  extent  he  has 
indicated,  may  be  a  first  step  toward  yet  freer  trade  relations 
with  Canada  in  manufactures  as  well  as  in  natural  products  ? 

Mr.  Root.  I  hope  it  will.  I  share  in  the  hope  that  was 
expressed  by  the  House  in  the  concluding  clause  that  they  put 
into  the  bill.  In  all  such  matters  we  have  to  go  step  by  step, 
and  every  friendly  arrangement  which  is  made  between  two 
countries  which  works  satisfactorily  to  mutual  benefit  makes 
some  further  friendly  arrangement  more  possible  and  easy. 

Now,  let  me  return  to  the  proposition.  The  fact  that  there 
is  a  deeper  and  broader  political  line  between  Canada  and  the 
several  states  than  there  is  between  the  states,  to  my  mind 
makes  no  difference  whatever  in  the  practical  certainty  that 
the  same  great  benefits  will  come  from  breaking  down  the 
trade  barrier.  The  political  line  is  of  no  consequence  in  such 
matters.  It  is  the  character  of  the  people,  their  law,  their 
language,  their  business  habits,  their  conditions  of  life,  that 
make  intercourse  upon  equal  terms  natural  and  easy,  which 
are  of  importance. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  regretted  to  hear  remarks  made  from 
time  to  time,  sometimes  I  have  thought  through  inadver- 
tence, and  sometimes  I  have  feared  with  a  hope  of  beating  this 
reciprocity  agreement  on  the  other  side  of  the  line,  about  the 
annexation  of  Canada.  Let  us  dismiss  from  our  minds,  if  it 
has  found  any  resting-place  in  the  mind  of  any  of  us,  any  such 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT       181 

idea.  There  may  have  been  a  time,  generations  ago,  when  it 
was  possible  that  such  an  idea  should  receive  consideration. 
That  time  has  long  since  passed.  Canada,  with  her  wonder- 
ful progress  of  the  last  twenty  years,  has  become  a  nation, 
and  she  is  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  nationalism.  Never  in 
the  most  assertive  and  vigorous  times  of  our  young  republic 
was  there  a  greater  sense  of  patriotic  nationality  than  exists 
in  Canada  today.  The  political  line  will  continue  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States.  Her  loyalty,  her  love  for  her 
mother-country,  will  continue;  her  separate  nationality  will 
continue;  but  across  the  line  of  political  division  will  pass 
and  repass  the  messages  of  trade  and  intimate  business  rela- 
tion and  intimate  personal  relation,  which  will  create  for  both 
peoples  the  blessings  that  our  states  have  received  from  each 
other  in  our  happy  Union. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  another  consideration  that  I  cannot 
leave  out  of  mind.  When  I  consider  the  mighty  power  to 
which  that  northern  neighbor  is  sure  to  grow;  when  I  con- 
sider the  three  thousand  miles  of  boundary,  when  I  look 
across  the  Atlantic  and  see  the  nations  of  Europe  each  an 
intrenched  camp,  each  scanning  the  other  across  battlements 
and  ranks  of  steel,  with  suspicion  and  distrust;  and  when  I 
think  of  the  possibility  that  we  here  may  be  robbed  of  the 
happy  security  in  which  we  have  so  long  lived  by  the  growth 
of  an  unfriendly  neighbor  to  our  north,  powerful  and  vigorous 
as  we  have  been,  I  confess,  sir,  that  all  small  calculation  or 
detailed  advantage  or  disadvantage  sinks  into  insignificance 
compared  with  the  overmastering  duty  of  inaugurating  and 
maintaining  a  national  policy  toward  this  infant  of  mighty 
strength  —  a  policy  which  shall  make  two  peoples  bound 
together  in  the  ties  of  friendship,  rendering  it  impossible 
that  we  should  duplicate  the  conditions  of  Europe. 

Mr.  President,  one  of  the  Senators  here  the  other  day  re- 
counted the  number  of  times  that  Canada  had  knocked  at  our 


182  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

doors  for  reciprocity  and  had  been  turned  away.  Ah,  yes, 
that  is  true;  it  is  true  that  for  many  years  we  have  conducted 
our  Government  under  a  policy  that  has  wounded  the  people 
of  Canada,  has  wounded  their  self-respect,  wounded  their 
feelings,  made  them  indignant  and  created  unfriendly  feel- 
ings toward  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  It  has 
been  a  stupid  policy,  and  it  is  time  for  us  to  depart  from  it. 
Never  again  should  the  friendly  approaches  of  this  most 
friendly  people  be  met  with  indifference.  Now  is  the  time,  if 
we  love  our  whole  country  and  are  willing  to  look  far  into  the 
future,  to  shape  our  policy  so  that  our  strength  shall  help 
the  growth  of  Canada  and  Canada's  strength  shall  help  our 
growth;  that  the  power  of  each  shall  contribute  to  the 
power  of  the  other;  and  that  the  enduring  friendship  of  each 
for  the  other  shall  make  the  great  English-speaking  continent 
the  strongest,  the  most  prosperous,  and  the  happiest  part  of 
the  globe. 

Mr.  President,  if  this  reciprocity  measure  is  to  be  beaten,  I 
hope  it  will  be  beaten  in  Canada  rather  than  here.  I  hope  it 
will  not  be  beaten  there;  I  do  not  think  it  will  be;  but  let 
it  be  there  rather  than  here,  for  the  sake  of  the  future,  for 
the  sake  of  the  continuance  of  that  good  old  agreement  under 
which  we  have  been  for  nearly  one  hundred  years  without 
armament  upon  the  Lakes. 

Mr.  Dillingham.  I  want  to  ask  the  Senator  from  New 
York,  if  he  can  do  so,  to  tell  the  Senate  when  in  the  last  sixty 
years  Canada  has  ever  expressed  a  willingness  for  reciprocity 
with  the  United  States  in  anything  outside  of  natural 
products  ? 

Mr.  Root.  Mr.  President,  I  am  unable  to  answer  the 
Senator's  question  in  detail.  I  know  that  Canada  has 
frequently  asked  for  reciprocity  and  has  been  met  with 
indifference.  . 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        183 

Mr.  Dillingham.  May  I  ask  the  Senator  a  further  ques- 
tion ? 

Mr.  Root.  Yes;  but  let  me  finish  answering  the  question 
the  Senator  has  just  asked.  I  know  the  subject  was  up  for 
consideration  in  1905;  I  know  that  it  was  up  for  considera- 
tion at  the  hands  of  the  Joint  High  Commission  in  1898;  and 
in  a  few  minutes,  if  I  could  go  to  the  volumes  of  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, I  could  look  up  a  number  more;  but  I  was  quoting 
from  a  Senator  who  spoke  here  the  other  day,  the  Senator 
from  Michigan  [Mr.  Smith].  It  is  true  that  Canada  has  of 
late  years,  and  perhaps  always,  put  her  special  stress  on 
natural  products,  but  that  does  not  at  all  vary  or  interfere 
with  the  proposition  that  I  have  just  made. 

Mr.  Dillingham.  I  have  seen  it  stated  in  the  public 
prints  —  I  do  not  know  whether  it  be  true  or  not  —  that  in 
the  negotiations  between  the  two  Governments  which  have 
resulted  in  this  agreement,  the  United  States  offered  to 
Canada  free  trade  in  manufactured  articles  as  well  as  in 
natural  products,  and  that  Canada,  following  the  doctrine 
she  has  held  for  sixty  years,  ever  since  the  abrogation  of  the 
treaty  of  1854,  absolutely  declined  to  go  further  than  as 
appears  in  this  agreement,  which  is  confined  substantially  to 
natural  products. 

Mr.  Root.  I  have  no  doubt  that  our  Government  was  de- 
sirous of  going  further,  and  I  will  contribute  to  the  discussion 
the  interesting  statement  that  the  American  commissioners 
in  the  Joint  High  Commission  of  1898  offered  to  Canada  free 
trade  in  all  things  upon  the  trifling  condition  that  Canada 
would  adopt  our  tariff,  which  naturally  formed  a  disagreeable 
impression  in  the  minds  of  Canadians,  and  which,  of  course, 
they  were  unwilling  to  accede  to. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  an  amendment  proposed  to  this  bill. 
The  Senator  from  Mississippi  [Mr.  Williams],  with  that  can- 


184  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

dor  and  courage  that  naturally  accompany  so  acute  a  mind 
and  so  great  ability  as  he  has,  has  relieved  me  of  any  neces- 
sity of  devoting  very  much  time  to  explaining  the  relation  of 
that  amendment  to  this  bill.  I  wish  simply  to  state  very 
briefly  what  it  is.  The  agreement  contains  a  schedule  called 
Schedule  A,  and  I  now  read  from  the  heading  of  the 
schedule: 

SCHEDULE  A 

Articles  the  growth,  product,  or  manufacture  of  the  United  States  to  be 
admitted  into  Canada  free  of  duty  when  imported  from  the  United  States, 
and  reciprocally  articles  the  growth,  product,  or  manufacture  of  Canada 
to  be  admitted  into  the  United  States  free  of  duty  when  imported  from 
Canada. 

Under  that  heading  in  that  schedule  were  enumerated  a 
great  number  of  articles,  including  pulp  and  paper.  The  bill, 
which  was  originally  introduced  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives, followed  that  schedule  by  providing  for  the  free 
admission  of  those  articles  into  the  United  States,  with  the 
condition  that  the  President  should  find  and  proclaim  that  a 
bill  for  their  free  admission  into  Canada  had  been  enacted. 
That  bill  was  for  the  agreement  pure  and  simple.  That  bill, 
however,  was  amended  in  the  other  House  by  taking  pulp  and 
paper  out  of  that  enumeration  which  followed  Schedule  A, 
putting  it  in  a  separate  section  —  section  2  —  and  dropping 
out  the  provision  requiring  the  corresponding  legislation  on 
the  part  of  Canada;  so  that,  without  any  legislation  on  the 
part  of  Canada  and  without  any  provision  being  made  for 
the  free  admission  of  our  paper  into  Canada,  Canadian  paper 
would,  on  the  enactment  of  the  bill,  subject  to  certain  con- 
ditions stated,  come  into  the  United  States  free  of  duty. 

Mr.  Nelson.  Does  the  Senator  from  New  York  maintain 
that  the  second  section  of  this  bill  is  within  the  scope  and  pur- 
view of  the  reciprocity  agreement  as  outlined  in  the  message 
of  the  President  and  sent  to  the  Senate  ? 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT       185 

Mr.  Root.  Mr.  President,  I  maintain  that  it  is  not;  and  I 
was  trying  to  explain  why  it  is  not.  The  Senator  from  Missis- 
sippi [Mr.  Williams],  in  the  remarks  to  which  I  referred  a  few 
moments  ago,  said  on  Monday  last: 

A  great  deal  of  importance  has  been  attached  to  the  idea  that  the 
Root  amendment  is  in  strict  accord  with  the  agreement  between  the  two 
countries.  Now,  I  always  like  to  argue  things  frankly,  for  two  reasons: 
First,  because  it  is  an  honest  thing  to  do;  and,  secondly,  because  it  is 
always  the  wisest  thing  to  do.  The  President  of  the  United  States  has 
made  no  concealment  of  the  fact  that  the  Root  amendment  does  express 
the  original  agreement  in  so  far  as  it  was  an  agreement  at  all.  The 
House  knew  it  expressed  the  agreement,  and  because  the  agreement  as  it 
was  made  would  have  resulted  in  exactly  what  I  have  said,  perpetually 
possibly,  indefinitely  certainly,  continuing  the  hold  of  the  International 
Paper  Company  upon  the  paper  business  of  the  country,  the  House 
changed  it  that  far,  knowing  that  when  it  changed  it,  it  changed  the  agree- 
ment on  the  whole  still  further  in  favor  of  Canada,  and  that  therefore 
Canada  would  not  object. 

That  is  a  very  fair  statement  of  the  exact  situation.  The 
amendment  which  I  suggested  to  the  Finance  Committee  and 
to  which  my  name  has  been  attached,  was  designed  to  put  the 
bill  back  where  it  originally  was,  so  that  the  bill  would  cover 
nothing  but  the  agreement.  To  vote  for  that  amendment 
would  be  equivalent  to  voting  against  the  change  of  the  bill 
that  was  made  in  the  House  and  which  added  to  the  bill,  in 
addition  to  the  reciprocity  agreement  and  beyond  that  agree- 
ment, a  further  and  different  provision,  taking  off  the  duty 
from  pulp  and  paper,  which  the  agreement  did  not  require  to 
be  taken  off. 

Mr.  President,  it  may  be  that,  as  the  Senator  from  Missis- 
sippi believes,  the  provision  of  the  House  Bill  taking  the  duty 
off  of  pulp  and  paper  without  any  compensatory  legislation 
by  Canada  is  a  better  provision  than  the  provision  in  the 
agreement.  I  am  not  going  to  discuss  that  now.  I  say 
that  it  may  be  that  it  is  a  better  provision;  it  certainly  is  a 
different  provision. 


186  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

I  have  become  satisfied  that  the  amendment  which  bears 
my  name  will  not  be  adopted.  For  many  different  reasons  a 
large  majority  of  the  Senate  are  going  to  vote  against  it, 
some  because  they  want  the  bill  to  be  bad,  some  because  they 
are  afraid  the  bill  would  not  pass  in  another  place  if  the 
amendment  were  adopted. 

I  am  not  going  to  discuss  the  question  whether  the  duty 
ought  to  be  taken  off.  It  is  a  modest  duty — practically  ten 
per  cent  on  the  importation  of  paper — but  I  am  not  going  to 
discuss  the  question  whether  it  should  be  taken  off.  It  evi- 
dently is  going  to  be  taken  off,  but  I  do  not  want  it  done 
under  cover  of  the  reciprocity  agreement,  and  I  am  satisfied 
to  have  suggested  the  amendment  and  to  have  had  it  dis- 
cussed here,  because  the  discussion  has  stripped  off  the 
cover  of  the  reciprocity  agreement  that  was  spread  over  this 
independent  pulp  and  paper  provision  so  largely  by  public 
misapprehension,  although,  I  believe,  honest  misapprehen- 
sion, on  the  part  of  great  numbers  of  the  newspapers  of  the 
country.  There  was  also  much  misapprehension  here  in  the 
Senate  for  a  long  time  about  it. 

The  amendment  the  House  incorporated  in  the  bill  taking 
off  this  duty  and  making  the  wood-pulp  and  paper  schedule 
a  separate  and  independent  proposition  is  going  to  pass,  but 
it  is  not  going  to  pass  under  any  false  pretenses,  inadvertent 
or  otherwise.  It  is  going  to  pass  because  this  Congress  means 
to  take  that  duty  off,  and  not  because  it  is  a  part  of  the 
reciprocity  agreement. 

Mr.  President,  now  let  me  say  one  thing  more,  and  I  am 
done.  I  am  and  have  been  for  the  agreement,  the  whole 
agreement,  and  nothing  but  the  agreement.  The  amend- 
ment made  to  the  bill  in  the  House,  which  I  wish  to  negative 
by  the  amendment  to  which  my  name  has  been  attached,  has 
added  to  the  agreement  another  separate  and  distinct  tariff 
provision.   I  am  against  that  for  one  reason,  because  I  believe 


CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY  AGREEMENT        187 

that  if  you  make  this  reciprocity  measure  the  vehicle  for  dis- 
cussing all  the  tariff  questions  that  can  be  raised,  the  bill  will 
never  pass.  The  bill  as  passed  by  the  House  in  this  respect, 
as  I  have  said,  may  be  better  than  the  provisions  of  the 
agreement.  There  may  be  a  hundred  measures  better  than 
the  provisions  of  the  agreement.  My  friend  from  North 
Dakota  [Mr.  McCumber]  can  doubtless  put  his  finger  on  some 
that  he  thinks  better;  my  friend  from  Iowa  [Mr.  Cummins] 
on  some  that  he  thinks  better;  half  the  Senators  here  can 
do  likewise.  I  was  against  the  addition  to  the  agreement 
of  this  separate  tariff  provision,  and  I  shall  be  against  the 
addition  to  the  agreement  of  any  other  tariff  provision;  and 
I,  with  the  very  small  number  of  Senators  who  vote  for  this 
amendment,  will  stand  in  a  singular  group  of  consistency,  for 
we  shall  take  the  same  view  about  all  the  proposed  changes 
of  this  reciprocity  agreement. 

While  I  say  I  shall  be  against  all  amendments  that  may  be 
offered,  I  wish  also  to  say  that  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  will 
be  some  amendments  offered  which  as  separate  and  substan- 
tive propositions  I  should  favor;  I  shall  be  against  them  be- 
cause I  think  it  is  our  duty,  acting  upon  the  soundest  public 
policy  and  with  the  broadest  judgment  as  to  the  benefit  of  our 
country,  to  pass  this  reciprocity  agreement.  When  we  have 
done  that,  at  convenient  and  proper  time,  if,  as  the  result  of 
passing  that  agreement  or  the  result  of  anything  else  that  has 
happened  or  shall  happen,  justice  and  the  public  good  require 
that  further  changes  be  made  in  our  tariff  law,  my  friends 
upon  both  sides  of  the  chamber  will  find  me  trying  to  be 
reasonable  and  just  in  meeting  their  desires  and  striving  to 
agree  with  their  judgment. 


ART  AND  ARCHITECTURE  IN  AMERICA 

REMARKS  AT  THE  ANNUAL  DINNER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  INSTI- 
TUTE OF  ARCHITECTS,  WASHINGTON,  JANUARY  11,  1905 

The  four  addresses  following,  delivered  at  widely  separated  dates,  dwell  largely 
upon  one  topic  —  the  preservation  of  the  ideals  for  the  artistic  development  of  the 
National  Capital  which  inspired  Major  L'Enfant  in  his  original  plans,  and  James 
Hoban  in  his  design  of  the  White  House.  Mr.  Root's  deep  interest  in  the  subject 
was  aroused  by  the  fact  that  his  official  positions  gave  him  immediate  supervision 
of  the  plans  and  construction  of  several  of  the  most  beautiful  and  effective  public 
buildings  in  Washington.  He  was  thus  brought  into  professional  relations  with  his 
personal  friends  Charles  Follen  McKim  and  Francis  Davis  Millet,  the  architect  and 
the  artist  to  whom  he  justly  awards  a  great  share  of  the  credit  for  the  fact  that 
definite  steps  were  taken  during  this  period,  by  the  establishment  of  the  permanent 
Commission  of  Fine  Arts,  to  protect  the  future  development  of  the  Capital  from 
meretricious  architecture,  and  to  preserve  and  safeguard  the  original  plans  for 
making  it  "the  city  beautiful."  The  eloquent  eulogy  of  McKim,  and  the  pathetic 
tribute  to  Millet  —  whose  inspiring  influence  was  not  wholly  lost  in  the  Titanic 
disaster  of  April  14,  1912 — reveal  a  side  of  Mr.  Root's  character  and  outlook  which 
does  not  appear  so  clearly  in  the  other  addresses  preserved  in  this  series.  His 
tribute  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  "the  great  exemplar  of  'the  simple  life'  of  America", 
and  to  the  Virginia  statesmen  —  American  gentlemen — who  built  and  lived  in 
typical  colonial  homes  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  may  be  traced  to  his  own 
reverent  affection  for  the  colonial  architecture  of  the  homesteads  of  his  ancestors 
in  New  England  and  New  York. 

THE  place  in  which  we  are  met,  and  its  traditions,  are  of 
happy  augury  for  the  future  of  American  architecture, 
which  receives  a  new  impulse  tonight.  Within  a  hundred 
feet  of  this  room  stands  the  church  of  St.  John,  which  per- 
petuates the  beauty  and  the  simplicity  of  Latrobe's  design. 
From  the  windows  of  the  adjoining  room  one  may  look 
through  the  trees  and  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  white  porch  of 
that  building,  relieved  by  our  President  from  the  stilted  title, 
"  Executive  Mansion",  and  brought  to  its  own  familiar  name, 
by  which  it  is  known  among  all  the  American  people  — 
"  The  White  House  ";   that   ideal  expression  of  the  time 

189 


190  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

when  the  fathers  of  the  Republic  lived;  that  inheritance  of 
America  from  the  genius  of  Hoban,  selected  by  Washington 
to  erect  as  the  home  of  America's  Chief  Magistrate,  the  resi- 
dence of  an  American  gentleman,  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac;  that  perpetual  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  the  life 
which  gave  to  the  nation  Washington,  and  Jefferson,  and 
Madison,  and  Marshall,  and  Randolph  —  all  American 
gentlemen,  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac. 

I  thank  Heaven  that  the  White  House  has  been  preserved, 
restored,  and  protected  against  all  discordant  and  over- 
whelming additions  and  constructions  whatsoever;  and 
against  all  garish  display  and  inconsistent  treatment; 
preserved  as  a  precious  monument  of  America's  past  for 
America's  future,  by  the  fine  and  reverent  sense  of  art  of 
that  brother  of  our  own,  upon  whose  shoulders  fell  the  mantle 
of  Richard  Hunt  —  Charles  McKim. 

At  the  foot  of  the  slope,  the  brow  of  which  we  can  see  from 
this  building,  begins  that  stretch  of  land  set  apart  by  Wash- 
ington and  L'Enf ant  for  the  great  avenue  of  green  which  was 
to  stretch  upon  the  axis  of  the  Capitol  on  to  the  future  monu- 
ment on  the  shore  of  the  river  Washington  loved,  that 
avenue  as  yet  not  realized,  but  to  be  realized  in  the  future, 
as  the  reverence  of  the  American  people  for  the  past  of  the 
Republic  and  the  loyalty  of  the  American  people  to  the  high 
ideals  of  art  which  Washington  appreciated  and  strove  for 
become  true  and  effective. 

Tomorrow's  sun  (which  is  soon  to  rise)  will  cast  over  the 
great  avenue  that  leads  to  this  place  the  shadow  of  the 
Capitol  wrought  out  of  the  work  of  Thornton  and  Hallet 
and  Bulfinch  and  Hadfield,  the  architects  who  gathered  their 
inspiration  not  only  from  the  classic  works  of  art,  but  from 
the  love  of  country  and  the  serene  natures  of  Washington  and 
of  Jefferson.  The  place  is  full  of  the  associations  and  the 
traditions  of  that  day  far  past,  a  day  back  to  which  the 


ART  AND  ARCHITECTURE  191 

people  of  our  country  are  turning  with  ever  more  and  more 
solicitous  desire  to  gather  the  inspiration  of  the  earlier 
time. 

Those  were  great  days  when  the  colonies  were  made  into 
a  nation,  and  they  were  the  beginnings  of  great  days  for 
architecture.  From  that  period  the  State  House  in  Boston, 
preserving  the  genius  of  Bulfinch,  looks  down  today  upon  the 
Shaw  memorial.  From  that  day  survive  the  state  houses  at 
Portsmouth  and  at  Newport.  From  that  day  the  City  Hall  in 
New  York,  embodying  the  fine  and  delicate  art  of  the  French 
Republic,  looks  up  in  its  purity  and  its  grace  upon  the  Tweed 
court-house  and  the  skyscrapers  of  lower  New  York!  From 
that  day  there  comes  to  us  a  message  in  the  capitol  at  Rich- 
mond, in  Monticello,  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  in  many  a 
fine  old  dwelling  in  Charleston,  in  many  a  colonial  and 
Revolutionary  structure  preserved  in  quiet  corners  in  the 
North  and  in  the  South;  and  as  our  nation  looks  back  to 
gather  renewed  inspiration  in  politics,  in  social  wisdom,  in 
patriotism,  it  finds  also  that  the  fathers  of  the  Republic  had 
in  their  souls  the  conception  of  beauty.  We  find  that  republi- 
canism, that  democracy,  that  the  government  of  the  people 
did  not  mean  to  them  things  unlovely,  did  not  mean  squalor 
or  ugliness  or  meanness,  but  meant  all  that  was  noble  and 
beautiful  in  art. 

In  the  midst  of  the  wealth  and  luxury  of  our  day  we  turn  to 
the  simplicity  of  earlier  times.  "  Jeffersonian  simplicity  "  is 
much  in  our  mouths  in  these  latter  years,  but  Jeffersonian 
simplicity  was  the  simplicity  of  true  art.  When  the  state 
house  was  to  be  built  at  Richmond,  Jefferson  was  asked  to 
secure  a  plan.  Being  in  Paris,  he  set  about  it;  but  because  of 
the  slow  communication  of  the  times  before  the  plan  had 
reached  Virginia  the  impatient  people  of  Richmond  had 
begun  the  erection  of  their  capitol,  and  Jefferson  wrote  to 
Madison  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  (1785)  this  letter: 


192  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Pakis,  September  SO,  1785. 
To  James  Madison. 

Dear  Sib:  ...  I  received  this  summer  a  letter  from  Messrs. 
Buchanan  and  Hay,  as  directors  of  the  public  buildings,  desiring  I  would 
have  drawn  for  them  plans  of  sundry  buildings,  and,  in  the  first  place,  of 
a  capitol.  They  fixed  for  their  receiving  this  plan  a  day  which  was  within 
about  six  weeks  of  that  on  which  their  letter  came  to  my  hand.  I 
engaged  an  architect  of  capital  abilities  in  this  business.  Much  time  was 
requisite,  after  the  external  form  was  agreed  on,  to  make  the  internal  dis- 
tribution convenient  for  the  three  branches  of  government.  This  time  was 
much  lengthened  by  my  avocations  to  other  objects,  which  I  had  no  right 
to  neglect.  The  plan,  however,  was  settled.  The  gentlemen  had  sent  me 
one  which  they  had  thought  of.  The  one  agreed  on  here  is  more  con- 
venient, more  beautiful,  gives  more  room,  and  will  not  cost  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  what  that  would.  We  took  for  our  model  what  is  called  the 
Maison  Carree,  of  Nismes,  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  if  not  the  most 
beautiful  and  precious  morsel  of  architecture  left  us  by  antiquity. 

It  was  built  by  Caius  and  Lucius  Csesar  and  repaired  by  Louis  XIV,  and 
has  the  suffrage  of  all  the  judges  of  architecture  who  have  seen  it,  as  yield- 
ing to  no  one  of  the  beautiful  monuments  of  Greece,  Rome,  Palmyra,  and 
Balbed,  which  late  travelers  have  communicated  to  us.  It  is  very  simple, 
but  it  is  noble  beyond  expression,  and  would  have  done  honor  to  our  coun- 
try, as  presenting  to  travelers  a  specimen  of  taste  in  our  infancy,  promising 
much  for  our  maturer  age. 

I  have  been  much  mortified  with  information  which  I  received  two  days 
ago  from  Virginia,  that  the  first  brick  of  the  capitol  would  be  laid  in  a  few 
days.  But  surely  the  delay  of  this  piece  of  a  summer  would  have  been 
repaired  by  the  savings  in  the  plan  preparing  here,  were  we  to  value  its 
other  superiorities  as  nothing.  But  how  is  a  taste  in  this  beautiful  art  to 
be  formed  in  our  countrymen  unless  we  avail  ourselves  of  every  occasion 
when  public  buildings  are  to  be  erected  of  presenting  to  them  models  for 
their  study  and  imitation. 

Pray  try  if  you  can  effect  the  stopping  of  this  work.  I  have  written  also 
to  E.  R.  on  the  subject.  The  loss  will  be  only  the  laying  of  the  bricks 
already  laid,  or  a  part  of  them.  The  bricks  themselves  will  do  again  for  the 
interior  walls,  and  one  side  wall  and  one  end  wall  may  remain,  as  they  will 
answer  equally  well  for  our  plan. 

This  loss  is  not  to  be  weighed  against  the  saving  of  money  which  will 
arise,  against  the  comfort  of  laying  out  the  public  money  for  something 
honorable,  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  an  object  and  proof  of  national  good 
taste,  and  the  regret  and  mortification  of  erecting  a  monument  of  our 
barbarism,  which  will  be  loaded  with  execrations  as  long  as  it  shall  endure. 


ART  AND  ARCHITECTURE  193 

The  plans  are  in  good  forwardness,  and  I  hope  will  be  ready  within  three 
or  four  weeks.  They  could  not  be  stopped  now  but  on  paying  their  whole 
price,  which  will  be  considerable.  If  the  undertakers  are  afraid  to  undo 
what  they  have  done  encourage  them  to  it  by  a  recommendation  from  the 
assembly. 

You  see  I  am  an  enthusiast  on  the  subject  of  the  arts,  but  it  is  an 
enthusiasm  of  which  I  am  not  ashamed,  as  its  object  is  to  improve  the 
taste  of  my  countrymen,  to  increase  their  reputation,  to  reconcile  to  them 
the  respect  of  the  world,  and  procure  them  its  praise. 

Yours,  affectionately, 

Thomas  Jefferson. 

That  was  the  simplicity  of  the  great  exemplar  of  the  simple 
life  of  America. 

Since  then  we  have  passed  through  a  dreadful  period.  The 
stern  requirements  of  conquering  a  continent,  the  engross- 
ment of  hardened  toil,  withdrew  our  people  from  the  con- 
sideration of  the  elegant  and  the  beautiful  in  life  which  the 
Virginia  planters  were  at  liberty  to  cherish.  In  this  period 
the  first  acquisition  of  wealth,  bringing  a  longing  for  orna- 
ment, for  something  beyond  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  found 
the  people  untrained  and  ignorant  of  art.  Basswood  castles 
and  sawed  scroll  work  were  the  first  expression  of  a  desire  for 
the  beautiful.  A  multitude  of  men  calling  themselves  archi- 
tects covered  the  face  of  the  country  with  horrible  objects  of 
ingenious  distortion,  including  a  vast  number  of  libels  upon 
that  excellent  lady  whose  name  has  been  given  to  the 
supposed  style  of  Queen  Anne. 

The  American  idea,  that  any  American  can  do  anything, 
prevailed  in  architecture.  The  simple  dignity  of  the  log 
cabin,  born  of  its  conditions,  wedded  to  its  environment,  gave 
place  to  the  meretricious  adornment  of  the  confectioner.  The 
perfectly  appropriate  and  charming  little  white  house  with 
green  blinds,  with  a  persistent  survival  of  classical  details  at 
the  hand  of  the  good,  honest  carpenter,  gave  way  to  wooden 
towers  and  arches,  and  to  cheap  pretense. 


194  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

But  a  better  day  has  dawned.  The  myriads  of  Americans 
who  year  after  year  swarm  across  the  Atlantic  and  rush 
through  Europe  with  the  guide-book,  seeing  for  ever  so  short 
a  time  fortress  and  castle,  palace  and  cathedral,  tower  and 
arch,  the  great  examples  of  art  in  the  ancient  and  modern 
world,  have  come  back  with  new  standards.  Gradually  the 
standard  of  the  people  has  changed.  We  have  already  done 
enough  so  that  we  can  afford  to  be  modest;  we  have  already 
done  enough  so  that  we  can  afford  to  admit  that  every 
American  cannot  do  everything. 

It  was  reserved  for  the  great  city  of  the  Middle  West,  by 
the  example  of  that  fair  White  City  by  the  lake,  which 
remains  with  us  as  a  dream  of  Ionian  seas,  to  lead  our  people 
out  of  the  wilderness  of  the  commonplace  to  new  ideas  of 
architectural  beauty  and  nobility.  The  lesson  of  the  Chicago 
exposition  has  gone  into  every  city  and  town  and  hamlet  of 
America.  The  architects  now  for  the  first  time  are  beginning 
to  have  the  nation  with  them. 

The  people  of  America  are  beginning  to  see  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  be  commonplace  in  order  to  have  common 
sense.  The  people  of  America  are  no  longer  content  that  the 
multimillionaire  in  his  palace,  the  great  railroad  corporation 
in  its  monumental  station,  the  great  banks  and  insurance 
companies  and  trust  companies  in  their  massive  business 
buildings,  shall  be  the  sole  inheritors  of  the  beauty  and  the  art 
which  our  fathers  loved.  They  wish  for  themselves  in  the 
public  buildings  of  municipalities  and  of  states  and  nation  to 
have  the  best  results  of  time  and  the  best  attainments  of 
genius.  What  the  people  desire,  their  representatives  in 
state  legislature,  in  municipal  body,  and  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  desire  for  them.  The  art  of  our  fathers, 
the  art  of  our  private  citizens,  is  to  be  the  art  of  our  people 
and  of  our  whole  people. 


ART  AND  ARCHITECTURE  195 

I  say  a  better  day  has  dawned.  The  reign  of  Mullet  is  over 
already.  For  our  great  public  buildings  architects  are  con- 
sulted, as  Washington  and  Jefferson  consulted  Thornton  and 
L'Enfant  and  Hoban  for  the  Capitol  and  the  White  House. 
We  have  the  inspiring  spectacle  in  this  city  of  the  broad- 
minded  management  of  the  greatest  of  our  railroad  corpora- 
tions, which  is  represented  at  this  board  tonight  by  President 
Cassatt,  voluntarily  and  cheerfully  withdrawing  from  the 
public  park  of  Washington  the  railway  station  and  the  rail- 
way terminals  which  stood  in  the  way  of  the  realization  of  the 
dream  of  Washington  and  L'Enfant;  voluntarily  sacrificing 
the  material  advantages  of  that  position  in  the  center  of  this 
great  city,  in  order  that  art  might  have  its  perfect  work  and 
the  plans  of  the  fathers  be  wrought  out  to  full  fruition. 

Again,  besides  securing  the  Villa  Mirafiori  for  the  American 
Academy  in  Rome,  within  the  week  a  firm  foundation  of 
endowment  has  been  made  sure  by  the  munificent  gift  of 
$100,000  by  Mr.  Henry  Walters,  of  Baltimore,  and  $100,000 
by  Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan,  of  New  York.  No  one  can  estimate 
the  value  to  France  of  the  two  centuries  during  which  the 
citizens  of  that  nation  were  taught  in  the  French  Academy  in 
Rome.  It  was  one  of  Jefferson's  cherished  ideas  that  young 
men  of  America  might  become  saturated  with  the  ideas  of 
classical  art  by  study  in  Rome;  and  now  we  are  beginning 
the  enterprise  through  which  America  will  no  longer  be 
obliged  to  take  her  ideas  of  classic  art  at  second  hand,  but  will 
go  directly  to  the  fountain  source  at  the  home  of  art,  under 
the  direct  and  cherishing  care  of  an  American  institution 
maintained  by  American  munificence. 

My  brothers  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects,  you 
are  no  longer  to  be  as  one  crying  in  the  wilderness.  The 
people  of  America  believe  that  they  are  building  a  state 
which  shall  endure  for  all  time.    They  believe  that  they  are 


196  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

building  into  its  structure  the  best  of  politics,  of  social 
science,  of  patriotism,  and  of  humanity.  They  believe  that 
the  hopes  of  mankind  for  the  rule  of  justice  and  liberty  and 
peace  rest  largely  upon  the  development  of  the  American 
republic.  And  they  already  know  that  as  there  is  a  sim- 
plicity and  nobility  in  nature  which  lifts  up  the  spirit  of  the 
poorest  worshiper,  there  is  a  simplicity  and  a  nobility  in  art 
which  protects  the  richest  of  its  votaries  from  the  enervating 
and  debasing  influence  of  a  purely  material  life  of  wealth. 

They  would  have  every  expression  of  American  ideals  the 
noblest  and  the  best;  and  they  would  leave  to  the  generations 
that  come  after  them  an  expression  of  their  patriotism,  of 
their  aspirations,  of  their  faith  in  humanity  and  in  divinity 
in  structures  as  truly  representative  of  the  greatness  and  the 
nobility  of  the  American  nation  as  the  cathedrals  of  the 
Middle  Ages  are  representative  of  the  aspirations  of  their 
builders. 

It  is  for  you  to  answer  the  demands  of  a  great  people  with 
great  ideals,  and  in  answering  those  demands  you  will  have 
with  you  in  the  future  the  people  whom  you  serve. 


CHARLES  FOLLEN  McKIM 

ADDRESS  AT  A  MEMORIAL  MEETING,  NEW  THEATER 
NEW  YORK,  NOVEMBER  23,  1909 

When  Charles  Follen  McKim  died,  September  14,  1909,  memorial  meetings  were 
held  in  New  York  and  in  Washington,  both  of  which  were  addressed  by  Mr.  Root. 
Both  addresses  were  short,  and  both  are  reprinted  below,  because  each  throws  a 
somewhat  different  light  upon  the  character,  the  genius,  and  the  services  of  the 
great  architect. 

THE  very  few  words  which  the  requirements  of  the  pro- 
gram permit  from  me  should  properly  be  in  recognition 
of  Charles  McKim's  public  service.  Without  ever  hold- 
ing a  public  office,  without  ever  binding  himself  to  service 
by  an  oath,  he  had  the  genius  of  public  service.  In  the 
building  of  the  Army  War  College  at  Washington,  in  the 
plan  and  construction  of  the  Engineers'  School,  in  the  design 
for  the  enlargement  and  rebuilding  of  the  government  station 
at  Governor's  Island  which  is  now  in  progress;  in  the  resto- 
ration of  the  White  House,  which  saved  our  country  from 
having  that  noble  expression  of  the  spirit  of  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson  perverted  from  a  gentleman's  home  on 
the  banks  of  the  Potomac  to  garish  mediocrity;  in  the 
making  of  the  great  plan  for  the  future  of  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art;  in  the  organization  and  promo- 
tion of  the  American  Academy  at  Rome;  in  the  long  years 
of  patient  and  devoted  labor  in  the  great  and  monumental 
work  of  the  Commission  for  the  Extension  and  Perfection  of 
the  Park  System  of  Washington,  which  has  revivified  and 
given  life  to  the  great  designs  of  L'Enfant  and  Washington; 
in  the  numerous  cases  in  which  we  used  to  call  upon  him  to 
help  our  incompetency  in  deciding  upon  designs  for  buildings 
and  for  memorials  and  monuments  in  the  National  Capital; 

197 


198  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

in  all  of  these  things  and  in  the  multitude  of  other  matters 
that  did  not  come  within  my  personal  observation,  he  was 
apparently  indifferent  to  personal  credit,  thoughtless  of 
emolument,  inspired  by  patriotic,  humanitarian  love  not 
merely  of  his  art,  but  of  the  mission  of  his  art. 

As  some  men  have  the  vision  of  their  country  rich  and 
prosperous,  and  some  men  the  vision  of  their  country  great 
and  powerful,  his  imagination  kept  always  before  him  the 
vision  of  a  country  inspired  and  elevated  by  a  purer  and 
nobler  taste;  and  unselfishly,  with  enthusiasm,  with  persis- 
tency and  high  and  noble  courage,  he  devoted  himself  to  that 
work.  The  sensitive  quality  of  his  nature  which  made  him 
shrink  from  conflict,  from  all  the  harsh  contacts  of  life,  made 
the  prosecution  of  this  work  by  him  courageous  beyond  the 
ordinary  capacity  for  conception.  That  gentle,  diffident  and 
hesitating  manner  seemed  always  to  be  yielding  to  opposition 
and  before  assault;  but  always,  though  he  swayed  to  and 
fro,  always  he  stood  in  the  same  place,  immovable,  however 
much  he  suffered,  —  and  he  did  suffer,  —  however  hard  it 
was,  he  never  could  surrender  what  he  believed  to  be  right 
in  art.  He  never  could  surrender.  It  was  impossible  for  his 
nature  to  yield  what  he  believed  to  be  best  for  the  future 
of  art. 

Gentle  and  heroic  soul,  happy  country  which  has  the 
character  to  recognize  such  a  man,  which  has  the  fiber  into 
which  can  be  woven  such  a  thread!  Fortunate  are  we  to 
have  known  him  and  to  have  called  him  our  friend. 

ADDRESS  AT  A  MEMORIAL  MEETING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE 
OF  ARCHITECTS,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  DECEMBER  15,  1909 

A  great  meeting  was  held  three  weeks  ago  in  the  New 
Theater  in  New  York,  called  by  the  united  action  of  a 
great  number  of  societies  devoted  to  different  branches  of  art, 
for  the  purpose  of  voicing  their  universal  sentiment  of  honor 


CHARLES  FOLLEN  McKIM  199 

to  the  memory  and  mourning  for  the  loss  of  Charles  McKim. 
At  that  meeting  I  said  what  I  had  to  say  in  tribute  to  his 
memory,  but  I  cannot  resist  the  feeling  that  it  is  appro- 
priate that  it  should  be  supplemented  by  this  meeting  here, 
held  under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Institute  of  Archi- 
tects, representing  his  own  profession  and  the  brethren 
among  whom  he  had  worked  with  such  loyal  friendship  and 
cooperation  for  many  years,  and  held  here  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  where,  notwithstanding  all  things  that  he  has 
done  elsewhere,  it  seems  to  me,  the  brightest  and  loftiest 
development  and  expression  of  his  character  and  his  genius 
occurred. 

Charles  McKim  was  a  conspicuous  member  of  the  little 
group  of  men  who  in  the  planning  and  building  of  the 
White  City  by  the  lake  at  Chicago,  sixteen  years  ago, 
turned  the  current  of  American  feeling  and  opinion  upon  all 
matters  of  art.  No  greater  epoch  in  the  life  of  art  ever  was 
than  that  which  is  marked  by  the  influence  and  the  new 
impulse  in  the  minds  of  the  millions  of  men  and  women  of  this 
great  and  rich  and  powerful  and  progressive  country,  who 
received  a  new  impression  of  beauty  and  dignity  in  art  by 
their  visit  to  that  wonderful  exhibition.  It  has  seemed  to  me 
that  there  was  as  great  an  influence  upon  the  minds  and 
characters  of  the  men  who  did  the  work  as  there  was  upon  the 
people  who  saw  it  and  learned  its  lesson.  There  has  been 
with  all  of  them,  and  notably  and  preeminently,  I  should 
say,  with  McKim,  from  that  day  forth  a  breadth  of  public 
spirit  and  devotion  of  their  art  to  the  public  service  such 
as  we  never  had  before.  Charles  McKim  was  peculiarly 
fitted  by  the  habit  of  his  mind,  by  his  character  and  by  the 
tendencies  of  his  art  to  correct  some  of  the  chief  faults  of 
the  American  temperament.  He  despised  and  shrank  from 
the  merely  ingenious  and  fantastical,  through  which  ama- 
teurs in  the  beginning  of  a  desire  for  ornament  are  apt  to 


200  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

express  themselves.    The  tendency  was  to  hold  fast  to  all 
that  was  good  in  the  past,  to  anchor  in  the  great  achieve- 
ments past,  and  to  aim  to  adapt  the  established  principles  of 
art  to  the  new  conditions  to  which  his  problems  related;  and 
so  when  he  came  —  when  he  was  called  to  apply  his  art  to  the 
solving  of  the  problems  that  lay  before  us  in  Washington,  it 
was  natural  for  him  not  to  attempt  some  great  and  brilliant 
achievement,  but  to  study  the  history  of  our  country,  and  to 
study  the  history  of  the  arts  that  could  be  brought  to  illus- 
trate and  express  the  history  of  our  country  here.     The 
Commission  for  the  Development  of  the  Park  System  of 
Washington  did  not  attempt  to  evolve  something  from  their 
inner  consciousness,  or  to  present  some  plan  which  should  be 
marked  by  their  names  and  lead  all  the  world  to  praise  their 
ingenuity  or  their  inventive  genius.    They  went  back  to  the 
plans  of  L'Enfant  and  Washington,  and  with  them  in  mind 
they  went  all  over  the  world  and  studied  all  the  great  speci- 
mens of  the  past  through  which  similar  problems  had  been 
worked  out,  and  they  brought  here  upon  their  return  the 
wealth  of  all  the  ages  and  a  keen  appreciation  of  our  own  his- 
tory, and  produced  a  plan  and  development  of  L'Enfant's 
plan  for  the  beautification  of  Washington,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  its  park  system,  which  I  believe  is  as  certain  to  be 
followed  as  the  sun  is  to  rise  tomorrow.    Unfortunately,  the 
immediate  acceptance  of  the  plan  is  hindered  by  a  wretched 
little  controversy  about  the  authority  under  which  it  was 
created;  but  that  is  a  temporary  matter.    We  cannot  go  on 
forever  rejecting  the  best  work  of  our  best  men  along  the  lines 
that  our  nation  is  following  in  all  of  our  great  and  progressive 
cities  —  we  cannot  go  on  forever  rejecting  that  because  of  a 
little  quarrel  over  the  authority  out  of  which  it  arose. 

Mr.  McKim  was  consulted  by  the  War  Department  when 
it  came  to  the  building  of  the  War  College  and  the  Engineers' 
School  in  the  old  Washington  Barracks  Reservation.    He 


CHARLES  FOLLEN  McKIM  201 

made  the  plans  and  he  put  up  the  buildings.  There  was  a 
charming  illustration  of  his  character  in  the  course  of  that 
work.  The  construction  was  put  in  charge  of  a  very  able 
officer  of  the  Engineer  Corps,  who  brought  to  it  the  rules 
and  the  traditions  of  a  strict  utilitarianism.  For  months  it 
seemed  as  if  there  was  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  the 
engineer  and  the  artist;  it  seemed  as  if  nothing  but  the  brute 
power  of  the  War  Department  could  settle  it.  But  as  time 
went  on  the  old  story  of  the  sun  and  the  north  wind  with  the 
traveller  repeated  itself.  The  gentle  insistence  and  unswerv- 
ing constancy  of  McKim  carried  the  day,  and  it  was  but  a 
short  time  before  the  engineer  officer  was  the  most  ardent 
admirer  and  loyal  follower  of  the  artist,  and  all  controversy 
disappeared,  and  the  War  College  today  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
very  wonderful  and  charming  example  of  architecture, 
perfectly  adapted  to  its  purpose  and  expressive  of  the 
character  of  the  institution. 

WTien  he  came  to  repair  or  restore  the  White  House,  he 
found  there  were  plans,  plans  which  looked  to  the  build- 
ing of  great  pavilions  at  either  end  of  the  old  White  House. 
It  would  have  been  splendid,  would  have  been  much 
admired,  would  have  redounded  to  the  glory  of  any  archi- 
tect; but  it  would  have  dwarfed  and  pushed  back  into  insig- 
nificance the  plain,  simple,  old  White  House,  and  McKim 
with  his  reverent  spirit,  his  self-restraint,  sought  in  the  history 
of  the  White  House  and  the  history  of  the  time  from  which 
it  came  the  spirit  in  which  he  was  to  work.  Time  and  time 
again  he  has  come  to  me  and  talked  about  what  he  had  found 
at  Monticello,  what  he  had  found  here  and  there  all  over 
the  country  in  the  way  of  remaining  buildings  that  express  the 
spirit  of  the  time  of  Washington  and  of  Jefferson.  He  sought 
for  the  foundations  of  the  old  east  wing  which  was  destroyed, 
I  suppose,  and  never  rebuilt  after  the  fire  of  1814  —  at  all 
events  it  had  long  disappeared  —  and  he  put  back  the  White 


202  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

House  as  nearly  as  possible  as  it  was  originally,  except  that  he 
took  out  all  the  poor  material  and  put  in  the  best  material; 
he  took  out  all  of  the  gingerbread  confectioner's  work  that 
had  been  put  in  in  the  course  of  years  and  replaced  it  by 
simple  and  dignified  work,  and  he  left  us  the  White  House  a 
perfect  expression,  an  enduring  expression  of  the  day  of 
Washington  and  of  Jefferson,  a  perfect  example  of  an 
American  gentleman's  home  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac. 

I  told  him  once  of  something  that  some  one  had  said  about 
the  office  building  —  the  President's  office  building.  There 
was  general  criticism,  and  the  members  of  our  Congress 
generally  failed  to  see  where  the  money  had  gone,  because  the 
great  pavilion  had  not  been  kept;  but  the  thing  that  I  told 
him  was  that  some  one  had  said  that  the  President's  office 
building  looked  like  a  stable.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  "  that  is  the 
best  thing  that  has  been  said  about  it  yet.  I  wanted  it  to 
look  like  a  simple  dependency  of  the  main  building,  and  this 
criticism  shows  that  I  have  accomplished  what  I  sought." 
It  was  not  alone  in  the  matters  where  he  was  directly 
intrusted  with  the  prosecution  of  work  as  an  architect  or  as 
a  member  of  the  Commission  that  he  was  of  service.  We  got 
in  the  way  of  calling  upon  him  for  advice  upon  all  sorts  of 
questions  relating  to  memorials,  to  statues  and  to  buildings 
in  the  city  of  Washington,  certain  that  his  correct  taste,  his 
carefully  studied  views,  would  prevent  any  error  being  made. 
He  was  called  upon  to  pass  upon  the  designs  for  the  Grant 
Memorial,  which  is  now  under  construction,  and  he  was 
called  upon  to  pass  upon  the  location,  and  a  battle  royal 
occurred  over  the  design  and  a  still  more  serious  conflict  over 
the  location;  but  he  was  tenacious  and  unyielding  in  his 
contention  for  what  he  was  sure  was  right  and  best,  and  he 
prevailed.  When  we  came  to  build  the  new  building  for  the 
International  Union  of  American  Republics,  which  is  now 
nearing  completion,  fronting  on  the  White  Lot  on  the  east 


CHARLES  FOLLEN  McKIM  203 

and  on  the  Potomac  Park  to  the  south,  there  was  a  great 
competition  of  more  than  a  hundred  architects  who  sent  in 
competitive  designs,  and  they  elected  Mr.  McKim,  with  Mr. 
Lord  and  Mr.  Hornbostel,  to  make  the  selection  from  the 
designs.  They  all  agreed  upon  the  design,  which  is  now  being 
followed,  and  when  that  had  been  done  the  characteristic 
occurred,  for  McKim  said:  "  Now,  I  would  like  very  much, 
as  this  design  has  been  determined  upon,  to  make  some  sug- 
gestions. I  think  that  all  of  our  committee  would  be  glad  to 
go  over  these  plans  with  the  architects,  and  possibly  we  may 
make  criticisms  and  suggestions  which  would  better  be  done 
now  than  after  the  building  is  put  up  ";  and  the  architects, 
of  course,  were  delighted  and  they  submitted  their  plans; 
many  invaluable  suggestions  were  made,  the  plans  were 
worked  over  and  still  again;  and  the  correct  taste  of  McKim 
goes  into  that  building  also,  as  it  had  into  the  White  House, 
as  it  did  into  the  War  College,  and  as  it  will  ultimately  appear 
in  the  great  park  system  of  Washington. 

Our  President  needed  to  add  nothing  to  the  many  reasons 
that  I  have  for  respect  and  affection  for  him,  but  he  did  add 
to  both  of  those  by  the  steadfastness  and  generous  apprecia- 
tion with  which  he  stood  by  McKim  in  his  strenuous  efforts  to 
prevent  the  park  system  plan  from  being  overslaughed  and 
rendered  impossible  by  subsequent  inconsistent  construction. 

All  of  this  work  illustrated  not  only  McKim's  character  as 
an  artist,  but  his  unselfishness,  his  love  of  his  country,  his 
pride  in  the  capital  city,  which  we  all  believe  is  to  be  so 
beautiful  and  so  noble.  He  did  love  his  country  and  he  was 
willing  to  spend  himself  without  stint,  in  order  that  his  art 
might  do  its  part  in  a  noble  and  adequate  expression  of  all 
that  was  best  in  his  country's  life.  Many  great  and  noble 
lives  have  entered  into  the  structure  of  American  govern- 
ment and  American  freedom,  but  none  in  executive  chair  or 
in  legislative  hall  deserves  a  higher  meed  of  appreciation  and 


204  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

grateful  recognition  for  noble  service  to  our  country  than 
the  life  of  Charles  McKim.  It  was  the  last  thought  in  his 
mind,  but  it  should  be  the  first  in  ours.  By  the  side  of 
L'Enfant,  Thornton,  Hoban,  Latrobe,  and  Bulfinch,  the 
name  of  Charles  Follen  McKim  should  always  be  perpetuated 
among  the  builders  —  the  great  genius-gifted  builders  —  of 
what  is  to  be,  I  believe,  the  most  noble  and  beautiful  city 
in  the  world. 


FRANCIS  DAVIS  MILLET 

REMARKS  AT  A  MEMORIAL  MEETING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  FEDERA- 
TION OF  ARTS,  WASHINGTON,  MAY  10,  1912 

IT  is  known  to  all  of  us  that  in  this  place  and  at  this  hour 
Francis  Millet  was  to  have  contributed  to  the  meeting 
of  the  National  Federation  of  Arts  a  lecture  upon  the  Art  of 
Design. 

Instead,  the  shadow  of  appalling  tragedy  has  fallen  upon 
us.  Instead,  there  is  silence  never  to  be  broken,  absence 
that  will  know  no  return,  a  sense  of  loss  irretrievable,  and  the 
need  for  readjustment  to  a  world  without  our  friend  and 
teacher.  Nevertheless  we  have  kept  our  appointment.  We 
have  come  to  meet  the  memory  of  our  friend.  That  is  here, 
living,  strong,  vivid,  and  thrown  into  relief  by  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  this  meeting. 

We  have  come  not  to  do  injustice  to  Francis  Millet's 
example  by  mourning  and  lamentation,  but  to  celebrate  the 
achievement  of  his  long  and  useful  and  joyous  life.  He  pos- 
sessed in  a  very  high  degree  many  of  the  qualities  which  men 
at  their  best,  in  their  noblest  moods,  most  delight  to  honor 
and  most  sincerely  believe  to  be  a  part  of  the  saving  grace  of 
the  world.  He  must  have  been  born  with  a  sense  of  the 
beautiful  and  a  love  of  it,  for  he  devoted  his  life  to  it,  and 
never  for  a  moment  did  the  desire  for  wealth  or  place  or 
power  or  distinction  turn  him  aside.  He  must  have  been 
born  with  a  natural  sympathy  for  his  kind,  because,  through- 
out his  long,  eventful  career,  with  all  its  widely  varied  experi- 
ences, he  never  failed  to  appreciate  and  grasp  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  the  attitude,  the  feelings,  wishes,  prejudices  of 

203 


206  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

others.  He  had  a  singular  capacity  for  winning  his  way 
without  making  enemies,  for  making  friends  of  his  opponents 
by  overcoming  them.  He  was  one  of  the  most  modest, 
unassuming  and  unselfish  of  men.  He  never  pushed  himself 
forward.  He  never  thought  nor  cared  where  the  spotlight  was. 
It  never  occurred  to  him  to  think  whether  he  went  through  a 
door  before  or  after  another.  He  thought  very  little  about 
himself  and  very  much  about  his  work.  Yet  from  some- 
where among  his  forbears  in  old  New  England  there  came 
into  his  make-up  a  firmness  of  fiber  which  made  him,  modest, 
sensitive,  beauty -loving  as  he  was,  a  man  of  strength  and 
force,  decision  of  character,  and  executive  capacity. 

Drummer-boy  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac;  graduate  of 
Harvard;  art  student  at  Antwerp;  secretary  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Commission  to  the  Vienna  Exposition;  war  corre- 
spondent in  the  Russo-Turkish  war;  director  of  decorations 
and  of  functions  at  the  Chicago  Exposition;  war  correspon- 
dent to  the  Philippines;  chairman  of  the  National  Commission 
to  Preserve  the  Beauty  of  Niagara  Falls;  chairman  of  the 
Advisory  Committee  of  the  National  Museum;  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Municipal  Art  Commission  of  New  York; 
commissioner-general  of  the  United  States  to  the  Tokyo 
Exposition;  trustee  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art; 
a  founder  and  the  secretary  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Arts;  secretary  and  active  executive  officer  of  the  American 
Academy  in  Rome;  vice-chairman  of  the  National  Fine  Arts 
Commission;  author,  painter,  always  a  painter  earning  his 
living  by  his  brush;  knowledge  of  men  and  cities,  experience 
in  many  affairs  of  life,  had  trained  his  intelligence  and  his 
judgment,  had  made  him  wise  and  considerate  and  tolerant 
and  kindly.  He  read  and  appraised  character  without  dis- 
paragement and  without  cynicism.  With  constant  industry, 
with  ungrudging  willingness  to  take  trouble,  with  incompar- 
able persistency,  in  his  quiet,  simple,  direct  way  he  always 


FRANCIS  DAVIS  MILLET  207 

pressed  on  toward  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes  — 
purposes  in  which  self  was  always  subordinate  and  some 
cause  which  he  had  at  heart  was  always  predominant.  The 
enumeration  of  his  engagements  shows  the  estimate  in  which 
he  was  held  by  others,  for  he  never  sought  the  posts  of  honor 
and  difficulty  which  he  held.  They  always  sought  him 
because  he  was  thought  by  others  to  be  preeminently  the 
man  for  the  work.  Other  countries  conferred  decorations 
upon  him  —  France,  the  Legion  of  Honor;  Russia,  the  Mili- 
tary Cross  of  St.  Anne  and  St.  Stanislaus;  Rumania,  the  Iron 
Cross;  Japan,  the  Order  of  the  Sacred  Treasure.  His  own 
people  conferred  upon  him  unpaid  labors  for  the  public  good. 
No  one  ever  heard  from  him  about  the  decorations  and  no 
one  ever  heard  from  him  any  claim  to  credit  for  the  duties 
performed.  He  was  one  of  a  little  group  of  American  artists 
whose  cooperation  in  the  noblest  spirit  of  unselfish  love  for 
art  produced  the  Court  of  Honor  and  the  White  City  on  the 
shore  of  Lake  Michigan  in  the  Exposition  of  1893.  The  great 
educational  effect  of  that  wonderful  creation  upon  the  mil- 
lions of  Americans  who  visited  the  exposition  began  a  new 
era  in  the  attitude  of  the  American  people  toward  art.  It 
also  produced  a  new  spirit  in  its  creators.  The  men  who 
accomplished  that  work  never  cancelled  their  enlistment  in 
the  public  service.  They  never  severed  the  bonds  that  held 
them  together  in  the  desire  that  their  countrymen  might 
acquire  the  increased  capacity  for  happiness  which  comes 
from  the  cultivation  of  taste.  They  were  inspired  by  a  con- 
ception of  their  country  adorned  and  dignified  by  noble  and 
stately  buildings  and  beautiful  parks  and  exquisite  works  of 
design,  by  painting  and  by  sculpture.  They  have  labored 
incessantly  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  ideas.  The 
influence  of  their  spirit  has  wrought  powerfully  among  all 
their  brethren  in  the  arts.  It  has  affected  the  public  mind, 
and  from  the  Court  of  Honor  and  the  spirit  of  the  men  who 


208  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

made  it  and  the  work  of  the  men  who  made  it,  came  the  chief 
impetus  which  produced  the  unprecedented  growth  of  our 
art  museums  and  art  societies  —  the  Washington  Park  Com- 
mission, the  National  Art  Commission,  the  municipal  art 
commissions  in  all  our  cities,  the  American  Academy  in 
Rome,  and  this  Fine  Arts  Federation. 

I  will  not  name  the  members  of  this  group  who,  happily, 
still  survive,  but  there  was  one  whose  gentle  and  beautiful 
soul  inspired  all  the  others,  the  beloved  and  lamented  Charles 
McKim.  Between  him  and  Millet  there  was  a  peculiar  com- 
radeship and  affection;  and  the  friendship  of  Charles  McKim 
was  in  itself  an  order  of  nobility.  The  dearest  object  of 
McKim's  later  years  was  the  establishment  and  development 
of  the  American  Academy  in  Rome,  through  which  his  own 
countrymen  might  receive  at  first  hand,  under  the  most  fav- 
orable conditions  and  surroundings,  education  and  inspiration 
in  those  principles  of  art  to  which  his  life  had  been  devoted. 
For  this  McKim  labored  unceasingly  with  his  failing  strength, 
and  Millet  took  up  the  unfinished  work  as  a  sacred  duty  to  the 
memory  of  his  friend.  It  was  in  the  prosecution  of  this  work 
that  he  met  his  death.  In  a  long  letter  that  Millet  wrote  me 
from  abroad  just  after  leaving  Rome  in  January  last  there  are 
some  paragraphs  which  illustrate  his  character.  There  had 
been  trouble  and  discord  and  necessity  for  changes  and  re- 
organization in  the  institution,  and  Millet  had  gone  to 
Rome  to  put  an  end  to  dissension  and  carry  through  the 
reorganization.  After  giving  account  of  the  many  difficulties 
and  the  way  in  which  they  had  been  surmounted,  he  writes: 

After  a  good  deal  of  cabling  and  writing  I,  at  the  unanimous  request  of 
the  executive  committee,  consented  to  take  this  position  (the  secretary- 
ship), painfully  conscious  that  whatever  talents  I  may  have  as  a  lieutenant 
do  not  in  the  least  qualify  me  to  be  at  the  head  of  anything,  and  also  quite 
unable  to  see  how  I  can  arrange  my  affairs,  earn  my  living  and  do  this 
work. 


FRANCIS  DAVIS  MILLET  209 

But  he  says: 

Everyone  now  agrees  that  the  situation  on  the  Janiculum  is  incompar- 
able, that  the  Academy  will  be  "  in  the  presence  of  Rome  "  even  more 
than  the  French  school  in  the  Medici,  and  when  the  dormitory  and  the 
studios  are  built  we  will  have  an  institution  of  an  importance  and  utility 
that  even  McKim  with  his  great  faith  could  scarcely  have  imagined. 

And  then  he  adds: 

Altogether  the  future  looks  bright  to  us  after  all  these  years  of  struggles 
and  flounderings,  and  I  feel  that  we  shall  carry  out  McKim's  ideas  to  the 
full,  perhaps  even  more. 

Here  speak  the  two  dominant  characteristics  of  the  man  — 
the  instinct  of  unselfish  service,  and  the  instinct  of  loyal 
friendship. 

He  was  so  great  a  part  of  many  good  enterprises,  so 
devoted,  so  able,  so  skillful,  so  efficient,  that  it  is  hard  to 
see  how  we  can  get  on  without  him.  Of  course,  everything 
will  go  on  and  he  will  soon  be  forgotten,  as  we  shall.  But 
he  will  not  be  forgotten  so  long  as  we  live  who  knew  him 
and  loved  him,  and  for  all  time,  in  whatever  of  nobility  and 
beauty  there  may  be  in  American  life  and  character,  there 
will  remain  something  of  the  spirit  and  service  of  Francis 
Millet. 


THE  PLACE  OF  CARDINAL  GIBBONS 

ADDRESS  AT  THE   CARDINAL  GIBBONS  CIVIC   DEMONSTRATION 
BALTIMORE,  JUNE  6,  1911 

IT  is  a  privilege  to  be  permitted  to  add  a  few  words  to  the 
tribute  which  Baltimore  and  Maryland  and  the  country 
are  paying  to  Cardinal  Gibbons  today.  Words,  however 
eloquent,  are  but  feeble  in  expressing  the  meaning  of  such  an 
assembly  as  this.  The  fact  that  not  only  the  friends  and 
neighbors  of  Baltimore  are  gathered  here,  but  that  these 
representatives  of  all  parts  of  our  country,  many  of  them  — 
a  large  part  of  them  —  of  different  religious  beliefs,  many  of 
them  representing  communities  widely  differing  in  their 
religious  faith,  have  come  to  join  in  this  expression  of  respect 
and  reverence  for  the  great  prelate,  shows,  more  than  words 
can  show,  the  deep  significance  of  this  occasion.  However, 
Your  Eminence,  and  my  friends  of  Baltimore,  the  gathering 
here  means  more  than  personal  opinion  or  feelings,  —  means 
that  America  can  do  what  was  impossible  in  lands  less  free 
and  ages  less  trained  in  humanity.  It  means  that  our  Ameri- 
can doctrine  of  separation  of  Church  and  State  does  not 
involve  the  separation  of  the  people  of  America  from  religious 
belief.  It  means  that  our  American  doctrine  of  religious 
toleration  does  not  mean  indifference  to  religious  faiths.  It 
means  that  with  all  our  commercialism,  with  all  our  wonder- 
ful progress  in  the  power  to  produce  wealth,  with  all  our 
differences  between  ourselves  as  to  the  possession  and  distri- 
bution of  wealth,  the  people  of  America  believe  in  ideals  and 
feel  the  guidance  of  faith  in  things  higher  than  their  material 
position. 

211 


212  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

It  is  because  Cardinal  Gibbons  has  illustrated  in  his  life, 
in  his  conduct,  in  his  arduous  labors,  in  his  self-devotion  to 
all  good  causes,  has  illustrated  all  that  we  would  like  to  have 
our  children  admire  and  follow,  all  that  we  love  to  believe  our 
country  possesses,  that  America,  through  us,  with  sincerity 
and  ardor,  honors  him  today.  And  it  is  because  he  has  been 
the  champion  of  ideals,  because  he  is  a  man  not  only  of 
work,  but  of  faith,  that  we  who  differ  with  him  in  dogma, 
who  do  not  belong  to  his  Church,  hold  him  in  his  proper 
person,  illustrating  the  true  union  of  service  to  State  and 
service  to  God,  the  true  union  which  makes  the  functional 
and  ceremonial  union  of  Church  and  State  unnecessary,  the 
union,  in  the  heart  of  man,  of  devotion  to  country  and 
devotion  to  God. 

It  is  because  he  is  both  a  great  prelate  and  a  great  citizen, 
because  under  his  guidance  his  church,  his  people,  and  his 
followers,  have  always  stood,  and  now  stand,  a  bulwark 
against  atheism  and  anarchy,  against  the  tearing  down  of 
those  principles  of  morality  and  of  government  upon  which 
the  opportunities  of  our  country  depend;  because,  while  he 
brings  the  prosperity  of  our  peaceful  order  to  the  service  of 
his  Church,  he  brings  the  faith  and  leadership  of  his  Church 
to  the  maintenance  of  peace  and  order,  that  we  all  honor  him 
and  wish  for  him  many  a  year  to  come  of  healthful,  honored, 
and  revered  life. 


JOSEPH  G.  CANNON 

ADDRESS  AT  A  DINNER  IN  HIS  HONOR  AT  WASHINGTON 
FEBRUARY  15,  1913 

Honorable  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  represented  the  Danville,  Illinois,  district  in 
the  Forty-third,  Forty-fourth,  Forty-fifth,  Forty-sixth,  Forty-seventh,  Forty- 
eighth,  Forty-ninth,  Fiftieth,  Fifty-first,  Fifty-third,  Fifty-fourth,  Fifty-fifth,  Fifty- 
sixth,  Fifty-seventh,  Fifty-eighth,  Fifty-ninth,  Sixtieth,  Sixty-first,  Sixty-second 
Congresses.  He  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  in  four  Con- 
gresses and  was  Speaker  of  the  House  in  four  Congresses.  In  1912  he  was  defeated 
for  reelection,  and  this  speech  was  made  at  a  dinner  in  his  honor,  on  the  eve  of  his 
retirement.    In  1914  Mr.  Cannon  was  again  elected  to  Congress,  and  again  in  1916. 

MR.  TOASTMASTER,  Mr.  Chairman,  and  my  dear 
Uncle  Joseph,  I  am  glad  to  congratulate  you  upon  your 
approaching  vacation.  If  any  man  in  this  world,  by  reason 
of  truly  religious  service,  is  entitled  to  a  sabbatical  year,  you 
are  entitled  to  it  after  this  long  period  of  public  service. 

I  know  that  it  is  only  a  vacation,  because  if  the  people  of 
the  Danville  district  do  not  get  over  their  brief  aberration 
within  two  years,  you  have  only  to  come  to  New  York  and 
I  will  turn  over  to  you  a  place  in  the  other  coordinate  branch 
of  the  legislative  department  of  the  government  where  you 
can  exercise  the  salutary  influence  by  which  you  have  made 
the  House  of  Representatives  the  great  and  efficient  body 
that  it  is. 

I  am  glad  to  congratulate  you,  not  only  because  there  are  a 
thousand  reminiscences  that  make  me  feel  kindly  to  you,  as 
men  who  have  fought  together  do  feel  toward  each  other,  but 
because  you  are  real. 

There  is  nothing  in  public  life,  I  think,  of  which  a  man  gets 
more  tired  than  of  lying  and  humbug.  It  is  very  hard  for  all 
of  us  to  talk  to  people  from  a  public  stage  as  we  talk  to  each 
other.    It  is  very  hard  for  all  of  us  to  tell  the  truth  when  we 


214  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

are  talking  to  the  people.  It  is  very  hard  for  all  of  us  to  tell 
the  truth  when  we  think  it  will  hurt  us.  It  is  very  hard  for 
all  of  us  to  keep  our  promises.  But  in  the  world  of  humbug, 
I  am  glad  to  do  honor  to  a  man  who  has  always  had  the 
courage  of  his  convictions,  the  courage  to  say  what  he 
believes,  to  say  nothing  that  he  does  not  believe,  and  to  act 
according  to  his  convictions. 

I  remember  some  years  ago  saying  that  if  Uncle  Joe  were 
not  so  old,  nothing  on  earth  could  keep  him  from  being  nomi- 
nated for  the  Presidency  —  and  it  was  true.  All  of  a  sudden 
came  along  a  situation  in  which  he  was  called  upon  to  act  at 
the  behest  of  great  and  powerful  influence,  and  he  refused, 
because  he  did  not  think  it  would  be  right  to  do  it;  and  then 
was  begun  the  cry  of  "  Cannonism."  He  has  outlived  it.  I 
would  like  to  hold  up  for  the  contemplation  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States  the  example  of  this  man,  who  dared  to 
become  unpopular  by  doing  what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty, 
and  who  has  outlived  it. 

There  is  another  reason  why  I  am  glad  to  do  you  honor  — 
because  you  stand  for  all  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
Your  own  experience  in  Congress,  the  variety  of  positions 
you  have  held,  your  long  service  as  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Appropriations,  called  upon  to  consider  the 
interests  of  every  part  of  the  country,  your  long  service  as 
Speaker  of  the  House,  have  made  you  the  representative  not 
alone  of  the  Danville  district,  but  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States. 

Let  me  say  to  you,  my  friends  of  the  Senate  and  the  House 
who  are  here,  that  the  great  reason  why  the  Executive  is  able 
so  frequently  to  command  the  sympathy  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  against  Congress  is  that  the  people  think  we 
are  representing  our  selfish  local  interests,  while  he  represents 
the  whole  people;  and  for  the  dignity,  the  influence,  and  the 
power  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  United  States  Govern- 


JOSEPH  G.  CANNON  215 

ment  it  is  well  for  us  to  do  honor  to  the  man  who  represents 
not  alone  his  own  district  but  all  the  people  of  the  country. 

I  am  glad  to  do  you  honor  for  another  reason  —  because 
looking  about  me  and  seeing  standpatters  and  progressives 
and  democrats  of  all  shades  and  stripes  of  opinion,  I  see  in 
this  meeting  that  we  are  not  becoming  Mexicanized;  I  see 
in  the  fact  that  we  all  do  honor  to  the  hardest  hitter,  to  the 
boldest  Speaker,  to  the  man  who  has  never  hesitated  to 
express  and  stand  by  his  opinions,  however  they  might  differ 
from  the  opinions  of  others,  I  see  in  this  general  concurrence 
of  honor  and  affection  for  him,  that  still  underlying  all  the 
storm  and  stress  of  American  politics  is  the  genuine  American 
spirit  of  brotherhood  toward  all  Americans. 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ADDRESS  AT  A  BANQUET  IN  HONOR  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB,  NEW  YORK 

FEBRUARY  3,  1904 

IT  is  good  to  be  home  again,  good  to  be  back  in  the  place 
about  which  are  gathered  the  sacred  associations  that 
came  to  us  in  the  flush  of  young  manhood.  One  of  you  said 
to  me  tonight,  taking  my  hand  in  the  other  room:  "  You  look 
like  old  times."  Old  times,  I  thought,  are  good  enough  for  me. 
The  dear  old  times  that  go  back  beyond  the  foundation  of 
this  already  old  club-house,  so  simple  in  comparison  with  the 
palaces  of  later  years,  and  yet  so  dignified  by  high  ideals  — 
back  to  the  old  days,  to  the  old  place  on  Madison  Square, 
where  we  felt  the  first  strong  impulse  of  the  men  who  com- 
bined to  save  and  perpetuate  the  Union.  And  yet  old  times 
pass  away.  During  the  short  period,  less  than  five  years 
since,  being  still  your  president,  I  was  called  from  my  home  to 
help  hold  up  the  hands  of  our  beloved  President  McKinley; 
during  that  short  period  how  many  a  beloved  face  has  van- 
ished, —  Richard  Butler,  and  Wales,  and  Dodge,  and  Fuller, 
and  Evarts,  and  many  another  we  shall  see  no  more;  and  I 
cannot  come  back  to  join  the  friends  of  early  youth,  the 
friends  and  loyal  associates  of  the  long  struggle  of  life,  to 
march  with  them  through  the  few  short  years  that  remain, 
without  feeling  that  stirring  of  the  heart  which  excludes  the 
cold  activity  of  the  mind. 

I  come  back,  my  friends,  with  renewed  devotion  to  the 
principles  that  underlie  and  justify  and  account  for  the 
existence  of  this  club.    I  come  back  able  to  say  to  you  that 

817 


218  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

the  closest  and  most  intimate  association  with  two  great 
men  who  have  held  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States, 
has  brought  not  that  contempt  which  is  said  sometimes  to 
result  from  familiarity,  but  much  increased  respect  for  the 
dignity  of  the  office,  and  increased  confidence  in  the  stability 
of  the  institutions  which  we  love,  in  a  country  which  can 
bring  to  the  seat  of  the  chief  magistrate  men  like  them.  I 
come  back  from  a  position  in  which  criticism  of  representa- 
tive government,  criticism  of  the  legislative  branch,  is  most 
easy  and  most  natural,  for  the  legislative  branch  of  our 
Government  is  always  a  drag  upon  the  exercise  of  executive 
power.  The  executive  is  always  asking  appropriations, 
asking  enabling  acts,  which  the  legislative  branch  is  unwilling 
to  give;  the  executive  is  always  open  to  the  suggestion  of 
unnecessary  legislative  delay  and  vacillation,  and  failure  to 
appreciate  the  exigencies  of  government,  failure  to  appreciate 
the  importance  of  doing  what,  to  the  men  who  are  charged 
with  the  duty  of  conducting  the  government,  seems  of  the 
highest  importance.  And  I  come  back  also  from  a  period  of 
exercise  of  wide  and  arbitrary  power,  for  no  power  on  earth 
is  so  arbitrary,  so  despotic,  as  military  power;  that  power 
which  enables  the  man  who  exercises  it,  with  a  single  stroke 
of  the  pen,  to  make  laws  and  unmake  them,  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment superior  to  every  court,  and  to  execute  the  laws  he  has 
made  and  the  judgment  he  has  pronounced.  Yet,  I  come 
back,  I  am  glad  to  say  to  you  who  are  wedded  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  popular  liberty,  with  a  deeper  sense  of  the  soundness 
and  the  beneficence  of  our  system  of  representative  govern- 
ment, with  a  deeper  sense  that  arbitrary  power,  swift  and 
effective  as  it  is  in  its  operation,  should  always  be  a  thing  of 
temporary  expedient,  adapted  only  to  the  time  of  war,  and 
ceasing  always  at  the  earliest  possible  moment;  and  that  the 
slow  and  tedious  processes  of  discussion  in  our  popular  assem- 
blies, the  discussion  that  often  seems  to  us  to  be  unnecessary, 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT       219 

is  essential  to  the  formation  of  equal  laws,  the  preservation  of 
liberty,  and  the  advance  of  justice  on  earth. 

Old  times  pass  away,  but  the  fabric  of  our  free  institutions 
stands.  The  majestic  progress  of  this  great  people,  growing 
ever  in  power  and  in  influence  throughout  the  world,  con- 
tinues. The  impulse  that  came  from  the  great  struggle  of 
the  Civil  War  has  not  spent  itself.  Public  administration, 
I  believe,  grows  purer  and  better;  public  servants  more 
unselfish  and  public  spirited  year  by  year.  The  people  of  our 
country  conform,  I  believe,  more  closely,  year  by  year,  to  the 
ideals  of  the  fathers;  and  from  close  and  intimate  association, 
from  careful  observation  of  all  branches  of  our  Government, 
I  come  back  to  you  to  say  that  I  believe  that  never  before 
have  the  principles  of  this  club,  the  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  the  principles  of  government  for  the  people 
and  by  the  people,  been  better  illustrated,  more  safely 
conserved,  in  the  history  of  America,  than  they  are  now. 

I  have  not  felt  away  from  home,  I  have  not  felt  in  a  strange 
atmosphere,  because  during  all  this  time  I  have  been  in  an 
atmosphere  of  loyalty  and  self-devotion.  You  may  study  the 
history  of  all  the  administrations  from  Washington  down,  and 
I  challenge  you  to  find  in  any  a  more  complete  loyalty 
and  devotion  to  the  President  who  had  called  the  Cabinet 
together,  to  the  principles  of  government  which  they  were 
sworn  to  apply,  than  can  be  found  among  my  associates  in 
Washington  during  the  administrations  of  McKinley  and 
Roosevelt. 

As  we  are  growing  old,  as  we  are  winding  up  our  lives,  the 
country  goes  on,  the  great  mission  —  Liberty  and  Justice  — 
is  working  out  towards  its  fulfillment.  McKinley,  dear  to  our 
hearts  —  dearer  to  mine  than  I  ever  believed  any  man  could 
become  after  I  had  passed  the  meridian  of  life  —  has  passed 
away,  and  another,  a  vigorous,  virile  member  of  this  club, 
has  taken  his  place.    The  problems  that  seemed  to  hang  over 


220  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

us  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Spain  have  gone  far  towards 
solution.  We,  of  America,  have  discovered  that  we,  too, 
possess  the  supreme  governing  capacity,  capacity  not  merely 
to  govern  ourselves  at  home,  but  that  great  power  that  in  all 
ages  has  made  the  difference  between  the  great  and  the  small 
nations,  the  capacity  to  govern  men  wherever  they  were 
found.  Men  trained  to  arms,  men  belonging  to  the  class 
whom  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  from  time  immemorial 
looked  upon  with  doubt  and  distrust,  men  from  the  regular 
army,  going  among  alien  peoples,  exercising  arbitrary  power 
and  supreme  control,  have  shown  themselves  most  adap- 
table, most  sympathetic  and  appreciative,  not  only  of  rights 
but  of  feelings  and  prejudices  and  idiosyncracies.  Our  army 
officers  have  become  collectors  of  customs  and  internal 
revenue,  governors  of  provinces,  commissioners  of  charities, 
superintendents  of  schools,  teachers  —  teachers  not  merely 
from  books  but  teachers  of  the  art  of  self-government;  and 
in  Porto  Rico  and  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  they  have  proved 
themselves  by  the  score,  by  the  hundred,  by  the  thousand, 
to  be  simple  American  citizens.  Gold  lace,  epaulets  and 
stars  count  for  nothing.  American  citizenship  has  been 
demonstrated,  and  American  citizenship  as  the  citizenship 
which  has  deep  down  at  its  center,  love  of  justice,  of  human 
freedom,  of  equal  opportunity,  and  of  progress,  and  helpful- 
ness and  happiness  for  mankind. 

So  the  problems  that  seemed  dark  and  doubtful  when  the 
war  with  Spain  closed,  have  solved  themselves  through  this 
working  of  a  great  multitude  of  Americans  competent  to 
govern.  As  your  president  has  said,  Porto  Rico  is  a  prosper- 
ous and  happy  community.  Cuba,  poor  Cuba!  that  had 
struggled  so  long  under  intolerable  oppression,  has  its  star 
set  in  the  firmament,  and  the  new  republic  governs  itself 
upon  the  principles  of  American  freedom,  —  a  new  republic 
that  has  set  its  star  in  the  heavens  to  lead  on  the  republics  of 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT       221 

all  Spanish  America.  And  let  me  tell  you  that  they  see  it  in 
the  heavens;  all  over  Central  and  South  America  men  are 
looking  at  Cuba  and  seeing  what  Spanish  Americans  can  do 
when  they  have  once  learned  the  lesson  of  American  free- 
dom, ordered  by  law.  And  in  the  Philippines,  where  they 
knew  not  law  —  for  there  was  no  rule  of  law  in  the  Philip- 
pines —  where  the  poor,  little  brown  men  had  never  heard  of 
aught  but  arbitrary  power,  they  are  beginning  to  learn  what 
liberty  means.  They  never  knew  what  it  meant.  When 
they  raised  the  cry  of  independence,  they  did  not  know  what 
it  meant.  They  are  beginning  to  learn;  and  I  look  for- 
ward to  the  time  when  the  Philippines  shall  assume  towards 
this  country  substantially  the  same  relation  that  Cuba  occu- 
pies today.  This  could  never  have  been  done  but  by  the 
exercise  of  the  power  that  rests  in  the  word  sovereignty. 
We  never  could  have  rescued  those  people  from  the  turmoil 
and  welter  of  savagery,  the  succession  of  military  dictator- 
ship following  military  dictatorship,  under  which  the  great 
body  of  the  people  would  have  had  no  choice  except  of 
tyrants,  —  but  by  the  exercise  of  sovereignty;  and  through 
that  sovereignty  there  has  already  dawned  for  the  people 
of  the  Philippines  the  better  day  of  liberty  and  law,  which 
they  are  beginning  to  understand. 

New  issues  have  come.  The  old  issues  of  five  years  ago 
have  passed  away.  New  questions  are  upon  the  horizon. 
But  the  principles  and  the  character  that  were  adequate  to 
the  old  will  be  adequate  to  the  new.  We  shall  dig  the  Canal. 
And  under  the  same  honest  and  unselfish  rule  that  has 
brought  liberty  and  law  to  Cuba  and  the  Philippines,  by  the 
peace,  the  prosperity,  and  the  individual  freedom  that 
gather  under  our  flag,  guarding  the  neutrality  of  the  Isthmus, 
we  shall  teach  the  people  of  Central  and  South  America 
the  same  lesson,  and  shall  give  to  them  an  example  of  how 
freedom  ought  to  be  used;    and  from  that  center  of  high 


222  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

example  will  come  greater  blessings  to  the  Spanish  American 
republics  of  Central  and  South  America  than  they  have  ever 
yet  realized  from  the  unregulated  freedom  they  won  them- 
selves from  Spain. 

I  count  it,  my  friends,  one  of  the  greatest  privileges  of  my 
life  to  have  been  able,  when  that  sad  day  came  —  the  day 
that  I  cannot  recall  without  the  deepest  emotion,  when  our 
President  McKinley  was  taken  away,  —  to  have  been  able 
to  stand  by  and  hold  up  the  hands  of  his  true  and  loyal 
successor.  I  am  told  that  he  is  not  popular  in  the  city  of 
New  York;  that  he,  who  was  born  and  grew  to  manhood 
among  us,  old  member  of  this  club,  who  made  his  first  essay 
in  public  life  going  to  represent  us  in  the  legislature  at 
Albany,  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  —  that  he  is  not  popu- 
lar here  in  the  city  of  his  home !  I  am  told  that  some  people 
say  that  he  is  not  safe.  I  could  not  come  back  to  you,  — 
come  back  to  you  between  whom  and  me  there  have  been  no 
concealments  for  all  these  thirty -five  years  —  and  not  say  to 
you  what  I  feel  on  that  subject.  Men  say  he  is  not  safe.  He 
is  not  safe  for  the  men  who  wish  to  prosecute  selfish  schemes 
to  the  public  detriment.  He  is  not  safe  for  the  men  who  wish 
government  to  be  conducted  with  greater  reference  to  cam- 
paign contributions  than  to  the  public  good.  He  is  not  safe 
for  the  men  who  wish  to  draw  the  President  of  the  United 
States  off  into  a  corner  and  make  whispered  arrangements, 
which  they  dare  not  have  known  by  their  constituents.  But 
I  say  to  you  that  he  has  been,  during  these  years  since  Presi- 
dent McKinley's  death,  the  greatest  conservative  force  for 
the  protection  of  property  and  our  institutions  in  the  city  of 
Washington.  There  is  a  better  way  to  protect  property,  to 
protect  capital,  to  protect  great  enterprises  than  by  buying 
legislatures.  There  is  a  better  way  to  deal  with  labor,  and  to 
keep  it  from  rising  into  the  tumult  of  the  unregulated  and 
resistless  mob  than  by  starving  it,  or  by  corrupting  its 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT       223 

leaders.  There  are  some  things  to  be  thought  of  besides  the 
speculation  of  the  hour.  There  is  the  great  onward  march  of 
American  institutions;  there  is  the  development  of  our  social 
system;  there  is  the  underlying  faith  and  trust  of  our  people 
in  the  laws  under  which  they  live;  and  the  man  who  is  put  in 
the  chair  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  this  great  people,  Presi- 
dent not  only  of  you  and  me,  here  in  New  York,  but  of  all  the 
eighty  millions  of  people  scattered  from  sea  to  sea,  charged 
under  his  high  responsibilities  so  to  administer  the  law  that  it 
shall  have  the  respect  and  the  confidence  of  the  people  who 
make  the  law,  —  he  must  take  a  view  broader  than  the  exi- 
gency of  the  moment,  broader  than  the  business  of  the  indi- 
vidual; he  must  see  to  it  that  he  goes  with  the  people  who 
make  the  law,  guiding  them  with  wisdom  and  with  strength, 
and  guiding  them  always  by  the  confidence  that  they  have 
in  him  and  the  laws  that  he  executes. 

I  have  said  that  President  Roosevelt  was  the  greatest  con- 
servative force  for  the  protection  of  property  and  of  capital 
in  the  city  of  Washington  during  the  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  President  McKinley's  death.  He  has  been  that  indeed. 
I  could  give  you  specific  instances  where  he  has  stood  between 
the  wish  of  men  in  Congress,  who  greatly  desired  to  pass 
extreme  and  violent  measures  and  the  accomplishment  of 
their  purpose,  by  the  strong  and  unwavering  declaration,  "  I 
will  veto  your  bill  if  you  pass  it ";  and  he  has  been  able  to 
do  that  because  he  was  so  fair,  so  appreciative  of  the  rights 
and  the  feelings  of  every  part  of  the  great  people  whose 
President  he  was,  that  they  trusted  him,  and  he  also  dared 
to  say,  "  I  will  veto  an  unfair  measure  against  capital." 

I  have  said  there  was  a  better  way  to  protect  capital  than 
by  buying  legislatures;  that  there  was  a  better  way  to  deal 
with  labor,  and  to  keep  it  from  becoming  a  mob,  than  by 
starving  it.  That  way  is,  that  capital  shall  be  fair;  that 
taking  all  the  high  rewards  of  brain,  —  of  the  inventive, 


224  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

discovering,  organizing  brain,  all  the  rich,  the  magnificent 
rewards  that  come  in  this  country  of  enterprise  and  boundless 
wealth  to  the  brain  that  invents,  that  discovers,  and  that 
organizes,  —  yet  capital  shall  be  fair,  fair  to  the  consumer, 
fair  to  the  laborer,  fair  to  the  investor;  that  it  shall  concede 
that  the  laws  shall  be  executed;  that  its  treatment  of  the 
laborer  shall  be  so  fair  that  the  reasonable  and  more  intelli- 
gent men  among  the  laborers  of  our  country  shall  have  their 
hands  held  up,  their  strength  increased,  their  power  to  lead 
their  fellows  supported,  and  that  they  shall  be  enabled  to 
hold  the  labor  of  America  solid  for  American  freedom,  and 
shall  believe  in  American  freedom  as  against  the  demagogue 
and  the  agitator  who  seek  to  turn  labor  into  a  mob.  Never 
forget  that  the  men  who  labor  cast  the  votes,  set  up  and  pull 
down  governments,  and  that  our  government  is  possible,  the 
perpetuity  of  our  institutions  is  possible,  the  continued 
opportunity  for  enterprise,  for  the  enjoyment  of  wealth,  for 
individual  liberty,  is  possible,  only  so  long  as  the  men  who 
labor  with  their  hands  believe  in  American  liberty  and 
American  laws. 

And  I  say  to  you,  my  friends  of  the  Union  League  Club, 
that  our  present  President  has,  by  fairness,  by  just  sympathy 
with  all  his  people,  acquired  the  power  to  do  more  for  the 
protection  of  the  material  interests,  and  for  the  spiritual 
interests  of  our  country  as  well,  than  any  man  ever  could 
have  acquired  by  following  the  dictates  of  a  narrow  and 
limited  view,  which  looked  only  to  the  speculation  of  the 
day,  or  the  interests  of  particular  enterprises. 

The  history  of  mankind  is  a  history  of  growth  in  power, 
and  growth  in  wealth,  and  growth  in  luxury,  and  then  decay ! 
And  then  despotism,  alternating  with  anarchy!  Take  the 
large  view  of  the  statesman,  and  think  of  the  future  of 
America !  The  one  thing  that  is  needed,  is  not  what  you  and 
I  will  make  tomorrow,  not  the  success  of  this  or  that  corpora- 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT       225 

tion,  for  next  year,  or  the  next  ten  years,  or  during  our 
lifetime,  but  the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions,  that  our  chil- 
dren and  our  children's  children  may  live  among  a  people 
devoted  to  American  freedom  and  American  justice.  One 
thing  necessary  for  that  is  that  the  great  toiling  mass  of  the 
American  people  shall  feel  that  laws  are  just  and  justly 
administered;  that  every  boy  has  his  chance  for  the  future, 
that  the  pathway  to  riches  and  honor  and  fame  and  power  is 
open  to  him;  that  no  class,  be  it  consolidated  by  the  unfair- 
ness of  capital,  be  it  consolidated  by  the  unwise  excesses  of 
labor,  shall  bar  him  from  the  noblest  birthright  of  liberty. 
And  it  is  that,  —  it  is  that  supreme  and  sacred  interest 
that  Theodore  Roosevelt  has  been  safeguarding  in  these 
years. 

Property  should  be  protected,  capital  should  be  preserved, 
enterprise  should  be  fostered,  liberty  should  be  protected, 
the  laboring  man  should  have  his  fair  wage.  Yes!  Yes! 
But  for  the  sacred  interests  that  gave  birth  to  this  club,  for 
the  perpetuity  of  the  institutions  which  we  love,  for  our 
children's  children's  sake,  the  one  thing  needful  is  that  truth 
and  honor  and  love  of  country,  and  the  service  of  mankind, 
shall  be  the  goal  set  before  the  eyes  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States;  that  the  boys  of  America  shall  believe  that 
the  honest  man,  that  the  true  man,  that  the  loyal  man,  has 
honor  in  this  land;  that  no  arts  of  the  politician,  that  no 
cajolery  of  wealth,  that  no  social  influence,  that  nothing  but 
faithfulness  to  the  duty  of  truth  and  honor  and  justice  shall 
receive  the  supreme  reward,  shall  win  the  great  prize  of 
popular  approval,  and  shall  rivet  the  esteem  and  the  affection 
of  the  men  of  America.  And  I  would  rather  have  my  boys 
taught  to  think  that  the  finest  thing  in  life  is  the  honesty  and 
frankness,  the  truth  and  loyalty,  the  honor  and  the  devotion 
to  his  country  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  than  to  have  them  in 
possession  of  all  the  wealth  in  this  great  metropolis. 


226  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

We  are  passing!  This  club  goes  on.  Our  country  goes  on. 
Whether  the  standards  be  low  or  high,  whether  they  be  the 
standards  of  the  hour's  expediency,  or  the  standards  of 
civilization's  progress,  time  only  can  tell;  but  that  they  shall 
be  the  latter,  the  work  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  as  President 
of  the  United  States,  is  more  weighty  than  that  of  any  one,  of 
any  score,  of  all  of  his  detractors  put  together. 


JOHN  PIERPONT  MORGAN 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  MEETING  OF  THE  CHAMBER  OF  COM- 
MERCE OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK,  APRIL  3,  1913 

MR.  MORGAN'S  life  is  still  so  near  to  us,  the  sense  of 
loss,  the  half -realized  idea  that  he  whom  we  have  been 
meeting  here  and  there  in  the  daily  life  of  the  present,  is  to 
be  here  no  more  is  so  vivid,  that  discriminating  estimate  is 
difficult. 

Nevertheless,  under  the  swift  and  sudden  detachment  of 
death  we  can  already,  vaguely,  dimly,  perceive  his  great 
career  as  a  whole;  the  vigorous  personality  is  seen  against 
the  background  of  tremendous  forces  whose  play  and  conflict 
have  been  not  merely  the  storm,  but  the  development  of  an 
amazing  half-century  of  progress  for  civilization. 

When  Mr.  Morgan  became  a  banker  there  was  a  different 
world  than  that  in  which  we  live.  Then  France  was  an 
empire.  Germany  was  a  geographical  expression  covering, 
by  a  reminiscence  of  history,  twenty  or  more  separate  and 
independent  states.  America  was  half  slave  and  half  free. 
The  continent  was  unspanned  save  by  the  emigrant  wagon; 
no  electric  cable  carried  communication  under  the  ocean; 
American  banking  was  provincial  and  local;  steamship  and 
railway  communication  were  in  their  infancy;  the  Bessemer 
process  for  making  steel  was  not  yet  a  success;  manufacture 
was  conducted  by  small  units ;  capital  was  small ;  enterprise 
was  individual.  During  his  active  life  as  a  banker  the  most 
amazing  development  of  wealth,  of  capacity  for  production,  of 
commercial  intercourse,  of  interchange  among  the  nations 
of  men,  of  transition  from  individual  activity  to  the  tremen- 


228  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

dous  power  of  organization,  the  utilization  of  discovery  and 
of  invention,  the  power  of  leadership,  all  transformed  the 
world  of  industry  and  of  commerce,  and  are  transforming  the 
social  life  of  the  world.  The  transactions  of  today  would  have 
seemed  impossible  dreams  half  a  century  ago.  The  dreams 
have  been  realized  in  this  single  active  life.  This  change  has 
not  been  an  invasion;  it  has  not  come  from  without,  it  has 
not  been  revolution;  it  has  been  development;  it  has  been 
a  growth  from  the  latent  forces  that  existed  half  a  century 
ago. 

This  our  friend  whom  we  honor  and  mourn  today,  was  the 
first,  the  commanding  and  controlling  figure  above  all  other 
men,  in  this  amazing  movement  of  the  forces  of  civilization. 
First  among  all  in  our  own  country,  emerging  from  its  pro- 
vincialism to  its  place  in  the  great  world  of  finance  and 
industry,  then  by  gradual  recognition  of  his  position  here, 
first  in  the  world,  the  greatest  of  bankers,  the  greatest  organ- 
izer of  production,  the  greatest  master  of  commerce  of  the 
world  in  the  mightiest  epoch  of  power  applied  to  finance,  to 
production  and  to  commerce. 

How  came  Mr.  Morgan  to  be  this  commanding  figure  ? 
No  title  marked  him  for  leadership  to  the  common  appre- 
hension. No  office  created  for  him  a  presumption  of  great- 
ness to  the  common  apprehension.  He  had  none  of  the  arts 
of  popularity.  He  had  but  little  capacity  for  expression.  In 
a  country  of  speakers,  of  orators,  of  influence  from  the  plat- 
form and  of  influence  by  the  printed  page,  he  was  almost 
silent.  It  was  only  under  stress  of  deep  emotion  that  his 
power  exhibited  itself  in  words.  The  real  man  was  hidden 
under  a  manner  often  gruff,  always  reserved.  He  was  not  a 
man  of  sentiment  and  expression,  but  a  man  of  feeling  and 
of  action. 

How  came  he  to  this  leadership  ?  He  had,  first  of  all,  con- 
structive instinct.    The  instinct  that  moved  him  was  not  to 


JOHN  PIERPONT  MORGAN  229 

accumulate,  but  to  do.  He  cared  little  for  money  for  itself. 
It  was  what  he  could  do  with  it;  it  was  to  use  it  for  good  ends 
and  objects  of  interest  and  desire,  not  to  have  it.  Not  the 
instinct  of  the  miser,  but  the  instinct  of  the  builder,  moved 
him  always.  He  had,  with  this  constructive  instinct,  extra- 
ordinary intuition.  He  did  not  reason  by  logical  processes. 
His  mind  went,  straight  as  an  arrow,  to  its  conclusion  by 
processes  that  he  himself  could  not  have  explained  and  of 
which  he  himself  was  not  conscious,  but  it  went  with  unerring 
accuracy.  There  is  a  field  of  the  higher  mathematics  into 
which  no  man  can  enter,  except  those  rare  men  who  come 
once  in  a  century  and  whose  minds  are  capable  of  proceeding 
to  a  distant  conclusion  by  processes  unconscious  to  them- 
selves. When  such  a  man  lives  his  name  becomes  great  in 
the  history  of  science.  Such  a  man  in  the  practical  affairs  of 
life  was  Mr.  Morgan.  The  same  kind  of  intuitive  process  or 
unconscious  reasoning  led  him  from  his  premises  to  his 
conclusions. 

With  that  quality  he  had,  of  course,  the  quality  of  swift 
decision,  so  that  opportunity  never  knocked  in  vain  at  his 
door.  At  the  time  when  all  things  were  possible,  his  decision 
came,  and  he  had  that  high  courage  and  inflexible  resolution 
that  gave  to  his  decision  the  quality  of  absolute  finality.  An 
incident  —  perhaps  a  necessary  incident  —  of  this  extra- 
ordinary quality  of  the  man  was  that  he  carried  a  touch- 
stone for  all  sham  and  deceit  and  pretense,  like  those  rings  of 
fable  or  of  history,  which  could  detect  the  presence  of  poison 
in  the  cup.  WTith  little  evidence  he  needed  no  argument,  he 
needed  no  deliberation,  but  he  detected  the  true  from  the 
false,  the  sound  from  the  unsound,  and  reached  the  bed-rock 
of  a  business  question  instantly.  Naturally,  with  these 
qualities  Mr.  Morgan  was  direct  and  simple  and  frank; 
never  cunning  or  devious,  never  wasting  his  time  or  retard- 
ing his  progress  by  puttering  about  among  little  things, 


230  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

among  trifles,  he  always  went  to  the  main  question   and 
decided  that,  and  then  let  everything  else  follow  that. 

He  had  far  sight  into  the  future,  he  had  breadth  of  vision 
and  largeness  of  mind  and  comprehension,  so  that  with  these 
great  qualities  he  became  a  great  figure.  He  had  more  than 
these.  He  had  that  imagination  which  could  visualize  — 
that  imagination  without  which  no  one,  poet  or  banker, 
reasoner  or  builder,  can  be  great  —  he  had  imagination  and 
he  had  faith,  which  not  only  was,  but  gave,  substance  of 
things  hoped  for.  Take  him  all  and  all  he  was  a  man,  —  a 
great  man.  And  with  these  qualities  had  he  not  genius  ?  I 
think  he  had.  I  think  no  ordinary  talent  can  answer  the 
question  why  Mr.  Morgan  attained  the  leadership  he  did.  I 
think  it  was  that  subtle  and  undefinable  and  rare  quality  of 
genius  that  made  him  what  he  was. 

So  he  became  a  great  leader  in  great  affairs,  and  his  name 
became  a  guarantee  of  soundness  and  honor  and  good  faith 
and  of  success,  so  far  as  the  exercise  of  inflexible  resolution 
could  produce  success.  He  carried  in  his  affairs  the  supreme 
capital  of  character.  Under  stress  of  excitement  in  the  Pujo 
investigation  he  presented  the  great  truth  of  character  to  the 
wonderment  and  confusion  of  smaller  minds  who  had  been 
thinking  upon  a  lower  plane  than  he  stood  upon.  So  he 
found  the  railroad  system  of  this  country  the  inheritor  of  the 
fruits  of  fraud  and  rapacity.  Railroads  that  had  been  bled 
by  their  builders  and  managers  all  over  the  country  he  recon- 
structed upon  the  basis  of  absolute  integrity,  so  that  faith 
took  the  place  of  distrust  and  condemnation. 

Mr.  Morgan  has  been  misjudged  by  many  unfamiliar  with 
great  affairs  who  cannot  see  that  big  affairs  proceed  upon  the 
same  principles  of  morality  as  small  affairs;  and  I  would  like 
to  say  —  not  to  you  in  his  own  city  who  knew  him,  but  to  the 
people  in  every  small  town  and  village  in  our  country :  Select 
from  among  the  people  of  your  town  the  man  who  is  most 


JOHN  PIERPONT  MORGAN  231 

honored,  the  man  to  whom  you  would  go  for  advice  in  dis- 
tress, the  man  whose  word  every  one  believes,  the  man  whose 
example  every  one  desires  his  son  to  follow,  and  in  this  great 
citizen  of  New  York  you  have  the  man  that  bears  the  same 
relation  of  faith  and  honor  and  good  report  to  all  the  great 
affairs  of  the  great  metropolis,  and  of  the  world  of  finance 
and  commerce. 

Mr.  Morgan  played  no  game  of  chance;  he  acquired  no 
fortune  by  deceit  or  over-reaching  or  unfair  advantage.  He 
took  from  no  man,  but  he  acquired  a  great  fortune  by  making 
the  prosperity  of  many  and  by  taking  his  fair  and  just  share 
of  the  prosperity  he  created.  The  scope  of  his  enterprise 
gave  him  a  relation  to  public  affairs  that  was  unexampled 
not  only  in  our  own  country,  but  I  think  in  any  country. 
There  were  so  many  investors  in  so  many  enterprises  whom 
his  chivalric  sense  of  honor  led  him  to  desire  to  protect  that 
the  financial  condition  of  the  country  was  a  matter  of  imme- 
diate interest  to  him,  and  he  took  the  place  that  Government 
should  have  taken  many  and  many  a  time.  The  faults  of  our 
financial  system,  made  possible  by  the  incapacity  of  law- 
makers to  reconcile  confidence  and  knowledge,  he  remedied 
from  time  to  time  as  occasion  arose  by  his  own  tremendous 
power;  and  that  was  government. 

What  Mr.  Morgan  did  in  the  settlement  of  the  coal  strike, 
what  he  did  in  the  panic  of  1907,  was  government  as  truly  as 
the  leadership  of  a  nation  acquired  by  one  commanding 
figure  who  turns  it  into  an  army  for  conquest,  or  defense,  is 
government.  He  followed  the  instincts  of  his  nature  which 
made  him  ready  for  public  service  wherever  there  was  a 
public  need  appealing  to  his  knowledge  and  his  constructive 
instinct. 

But  there  is  another  side  of  Mr.  Morgan's  nature  which 
appeals  to  us,  and  that  was  his  kindliness  and  generous 
impulse;  the  capacity  for  loyalty  to  every  cause  he  espoused, 


232  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

that  made  him  a  staunch  churchman,  that  made  him  a  signifi- 
cant figure  in  all  organizations  in  which  we  have  known 
him,  that  made  him  a  philanthropist  and  that  made  him  a 
friend. 

He  was  a  great  collector.  He  loved  all  forms  of  beauty. 
He  had  a  sensitiveness  to  impressions  —  all  the  noble  impres- 
sions of  life  that  made  him  love  association  with  what  was 
great  in  literature,  in  history,  and  in  art.  More  than  that,  he 
had  a  sensitiveness  to  all  the  noblest  feelings  that  dignify 
manhood,  which  made  his  heart  open  to  distress  and  suffer- 
ing. Many  men  remain  to  be  grateful  to  him  for  the  preser- 
vation of  their  fortunes,  of  their  investments,  of  the  income 
upon  which  depend  the  comfort  of  their  lives  and  the  lives  of 
their  families.  Many  men,  multitudes,  remain  to  thank  him 
for  bringing  to  his  own  land,  and  helping  to  build  up  oppor- 
tunity for  the  people  to  see,  the  great  works  of  art  of  other 
countries  and  of  other  times,  to  thank  him  for  that  enlarge- 
ment of  human  happiness  that  after  men  have  drunken  and 
eaten  all  they  can  and  have  worn  all  the  clothes  and  found 
all  the  shelter  they  can,  comes  from  the  cultivation  of  taste. 
Many  men  remain  to  be  grateful  for  his  example  of  integrity 
and  honor,  and  many  men  and  women,  to  bless  him  for  the 
good  done  in  secret.  Many  a  tear  has  been  shed  in  homes  of 
which  I  know  for  the  loss  of  the  simple-minded  modest 
benefactor  who  has  done  good  in  secret. 

The  era  of  development  in  which  he  lived  and  worked  is 
drawing  to  its  conclusion.  Such  a  career  as  his  may,  and 
probably  will  never  come  again,  for  we  come  to  other  days 
and  to  other  manners;  but  the  great-heartedness,  the  nobility 
of  the  man,  thank  God !  are  eternal,  and  will  live  with  us  and 
in  his  example,  time  without  end. 


JOHN  MARSHALL  HARLAN1 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  EXERCISES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
SUPREME  COURT,  DECEMBER  16,  1911 

I  BEG  to  second  the  resolutions  which  have  been  presented, 
and  by  doing  so  to  pay  the  tribute  of  gratitude  which 
every  lover  of  his  country  must  feel  for  a  life  devoted  to  its 
service  with  power  and  sincerity. 

The  passing  of  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  severs  the  tie  between 
two  eras  of  our  national  development.  When  he  came  to  the 
Court  thirty-four  years  ago,  he  became  a  part  of  a  court 
made  up  by  the  men  of  the  great  Civil  War,  all  appointed  by 
President  Lincoln  and  President  Grant,  except  one,  Mr. 
Justice  Clifford,  who  was  the  surviving  connecting  link 
between  the  Court  of  the  war  and  of  the  preceding  era  in 
which  he  received  his  commission  from  President  Buchanan. 
Justice  Harlan  was  the  sole  connection  between  the  Court  of 
the  war,  the  Court  of  Lincoln  and  Grant,  with  the  new  Court 
that  faces  the  new  problems  in  a  new  period  of  our  national 
development;  and  as  he  goes,  the  old  Court  disappears  and 
the  new  times  confront  us.  There  are  clocks  moved  by 
electricity  from  some  central  station;  their  hands  remain 
motionless  as  the  minute  passes,  but  at  its  end  they  move 
instantly  to  the  next,  and  lo,  another  minute  of  time  has 
come.  As  Mr.  Justice  Clifford  passed  away,  the  hand  moved 
from  the  ante-bellum  days  to  the  period  of  war  and  recon- 

1  Born  in  Boyle  County,  Ky.,  June  1,  1833.  He  was  appointed  an  Associate 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  November  29,  1877,  and  died 
October  14,  1911.  Only  three  members  of  the  Supreme  Court  Bench  have  served 
longer  terms  than  Justice  Harlan,  namely:  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall  and  Justices 
Stephen  J.  Field  and  Joseph  Story. 

233 


234  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

struction;  and  as  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  passed,  the  hand 
moved  from  the  period  of  war  and  reconstruction  to  the  new 
times  and  new  problems  before  us.  He,  Mr.  Chairman,  was 
a  conspicuous  illustration  of  a  truth  so  often  exhibited  in  the 
history  of  American  jurisprudence  —  often  in  that  of  Eng- 
land, more  often  in  that  of  America  —  the  truth  that  more 
important  than  learning,  more  important  than  the  logical 
faculty,  more  important  than  all  scholastic  qualities,  is  the 
force  of  character,  the  sympathy  with  life,  the  capacity  for 
measuring  the  needs  and  the  impulses  of  constantly  develop- 
ing and  changing  life  which  come  to  the  men  who  have  been 
significant  figures  in  great  affairs,  to  men  who  are  essentially 
human  and  who  have  dealt  with  great  forces. 

Justice  Harlan  did  not  reason  abstractly  about  it,  but  his 
nature  compelled  him  to  illustrate  the  truth  that  in  every 
judicial  decision  there  are  two  primary  elements:  one  is  the 
ascertainment  of  the  law,  and  the  other  is  the  application  of 
the  law  to  the  human  problems  of  the  moment.  He  was 
intensely  human,  a  natural  contender,  and  he  rejoiced  in  con- 
flict. Life  upon  the  bench  never  emasculated  him.  He  never 
wrapt  himself  about  with  the  mantle  of  over-sensitive  dignity, 
which  sometimes  minimizes  judicial  strength.  He  asked  for 
no  subservience  from  the  bar,  and  he  rejoiced  in  the  presence 
of  counsel  who  stood  up  with  manly  assertion  of  a  client's 
rights.  His  intense  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  kept 
him  young,  and  his  youth  maintained  his  usefulness.  He 
could  not  lose  his  interest  in  the  affairs  of  life.  Sometimes, 
when  in  executive  office,  I  myself  have  been  struggling  with 
difficult  questions  that  were  attracting  public  interest  and 
public  thought,  his  tall  form  would  make  its  appearance  in 
my  office,  and  he  would  come  in  the  kindly  confidence  of  old 
friendship  and  sympathy,  to  tell  me  how,  from  his  point  of 
view,  it  would  seem,  and  to  warn  me  of  dangers  he  could 
foresee.     Sometimes  he  would  say:  "  Be  careful  not  to  run 


JOHN  MARSHALL  HARLAN  235 

i 

against  the  doctrine  of  that  or  the  other  case  in  what 
you  do.'* 

And  so  he  lived  a  full  life  to  the  end,  rendering  service  for 
which  no  one  could  compensate,  and  for  which  we  can  only 
render  that  great  appreciation  which  is  after  all  more  impor- 
tant for  us  than  for  him.  For,  to  mark  such  a  life  and  such  a 
career  of  service  with  honor,  in  order  that  all  men  may  realize 
their  worth,  is  of  primary  consequence  to  the  administration 
of  our  law,  and  the  just  exercise  of  our  governmental  powers 
in  all  departments  for  the  future.  No  one  can  be  a  pessimist, 
no  one  can  despair  of  his  country's  future  who  sees  that  such 
men  as  John  Marshall  Harlan  can  live  in  honor  and  can  be 
appreciated  by  their  countrymen. 


MELVILLE  WESTON  FULLER1 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  BAR  AND  OFFICERS 

OF  THE  SUPREME   COURT  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES 

DECEMBER  10,  1910 

I  BEG  to  second  the  resolutions  which  have  been  offered 
and  to  express  the  adherence  of  the  bar  of  New  York  to  the 
sentiment  of  the  resolutions  and  of  the  admirable  remarks 
which  have  been  made  both  by  yourself  as  chairman  of  the 
meeting  and  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Resolu- 
tions. Some  of  us  at  the  New  York  bar  were  very  much 
disappointed  twenty-three  years  ago  that  the  choice  of  Presi- 
dent Cleveland  for  the  great  office  of  Chief  Justice  did  not 
fall  upon  our  associate  and  leader,  Mr.  James  C.  Carter.  It 
was  a  great  disappointment  to  us;  but  we  soon  came  to  know 
the  new  Chief  Justice;  we  came  to  realize  the  admirable 
intellectual  integrity  of  a  mind  free  from  crankiness  and 
flaws.  We  came  to  recognize  the  noble  and  beautiful  char- 
acter, the  sweet  and  kindly  sense  of  justice  and  consideration 
for  all  men.  We  learned  to  feel  the  influence  of  that  benign 
presence  on  this  great  bench,  and  to  feel  that  no  one  came 
here,  however  great  or  small,  to  speak  for  justice,  who  was  not 
heard  with  an  open  mind  and  a  kindly  appreciation.  We 
came  to  respect  the  choice  of  President  Cleveland,  and  we 
came  to  love  the  man  and  honor  the  judge.  So,  there  are  no 
truer  mourners  by  the  side  of  Melville  Weston  Fuller's  grave 
than  the  members  of  the  bar  of  the  state  of  New  York. 

The  occasion  calls  for  signalizing  the  greatness  of  the  Court 
and  the  dignity  of  the  great  officer  who  has  passed  away. 

1  Born  in  Augusta,  Me.,  February  11, 1833.    He  was  appointed  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States,  April  30,  1888,  and  died  at  Sorrento,  Me.,  July  4,  1910. 

237 


238  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

Not  merely  in  pursuit  of  the  interests  which  are  represented 
in  individual  cases,  but  in  our  maintenance  of  the  great 
principles  upon  which  justice  in  all  cases  depends,  we  should 
emphasize  the  event  which  changes  the  possession  of  the 
greatest  judicial  office  in  the  world.  At  either  end  of  this 
building  the  public  interests,  the  apparent  public  interests, 
the  feelings,  the  wishes,  the  purposes  of  the  moment  may 
prevail,  and  within  limits  should  prevail.  At  the  other  end 
of  the  avenue  the  execution  of  the  law  answers,  and  should 
answer,  to  the  public  will  as  expressed  in  the  legislation  of 
the  moment.  Here  are  preserved  those  great  rules  of  right 
conduct,  those  fundamental  principles  which  are  essential  to 
the  perpetuity  of  free  institutions,  whatever  may  be  the 
gusts  or  storms  of  public  feeling,  by  that  arrangement  of  our 
Constitution  which  is  the  chief  gift  of  America  to  the  science 
of  government.  Here  are  maintained  the  eternal  principles 
of  justice,  and  above  all  monarchs  and  presidents  and  legis- 
latures, the  sacred  office  upon  which  depends  the  continu- 
ance of  self-government  with  peace  and  justice,  is  the  office  of 
the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States.  We  mark  our 
reverence  for  the  office.  We  mark  our  deep  sense  of  its 
supreme  value  and  dignity,  as  we  join  with  our  brethren  of 
the  bar  in  doing  honor  to  him  who  has  worthily  and  nobly, 
with  a  pure  and  beautiful  spirit  and  an  upright  and  vigorous 
mind,  sustained  that  great  office. 


JUDGE  JOHN  DAVIS1 

ADDRESS  OF  THE   SECRETARY  OF  WAR  AT  A  MEMORIAL 

MEETING  OF  THE  BAR  OF  THE  COURT  OF  CLAIMS 

MAY   16,  1902 

IT  is  with  melancholy  satisfaction  that  I  find  myself  able 
to  appear  before  you  to  pay  a  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  my  dead  friend  by  seconding  the  excellent  reso- 
lutions now  presented.  The  members  of  the  profession 
practicing  habitually  at  your  bar  have  had  better  oppor- 
tunities than  I  to  observe  the  way  in  which  Judge  Davis 
performed  his  judicial  duties  and  to  estimate  his  qualities 
and  merits  as  a  judge.  They  have  expressed  themselves 
in  these  resolutions  with  sincerity  and  genuine  feeling. 

But  my  knowledge  of  him  and  my  friendship  for  him  go 
back  to  the  days  of  his  early  manhood,  long  before  he  took 
his  seat  upon  the  bench,  and  when  he  was  forming  and 
developing  in  private  station  the  character  whose  admirable 
traits  have  endeared  him  to  you.  Of  all  the  qualities  that 
determine  the  usefulness  of  a  judge,  the  most  important  are 
those  which  go  to  make  up  the  personal  character  of  the  man. 
Character  upon  the  bench  is  of  more  weight  and  value  than 
learning  or  reasoning  power  or  industry  or  acumen,  or  all  of 
these  put  together.  Without  it  the  most  brilliant  talents 
but  disturb  public  order  and  undermine  the  foundations  of 
justice.  John  Davis  joined  to  superior  intelligence  a  judicial 
character  of  the  best  type.  He  had  the  fine  instincts  of  the 
gentleman  —  a  shrinking  from  sham  and  pretense,  from 

1  Honorable  John  Davis,  judge  of  the  Court  of  Claims,  died  at  his  residence  in 
Washington,  Monday,  May  5,  1902,  in  the  fifty-first  year  of  his  age.  He  had  been 
appointed  to  the  bench  of  the  Court  of  Claims,  January  20,  1885. 


240  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

humbug  and  claptrap,  an  antipathy  to  mere  hollow  rhetoric 
and  the  clever  devices  that  cover  up  the  merits  of  a  case,  and 
a  liking  for  the  simple  statement  of  a  suitor's  right. 

He  had  genuine  sympathy  with  his  fellow-men,  charity  for 
their  weaknesses,  kindly  judgment  of  their  conduct,  and  a 
sweet  and  serene  temper  which  forbade  his  being  swayed 
into  partisanship  by  passion  or  prejudice,  or  falling  into  harsh 
and  unjust  judgment;  and  he  had  the  sense  of  honorable 
obligation,  which  makes  it  impossible  for  a  judge,  upon  any 
consideration  whatever,  to  withhold  from  a  suitor  the  logical 
results  of  judicial  opinion;  which  makes  the  intangible  right 
that  the  litigant  has  to  a  conviction  formed  in  the  judicial 
mind,  as  sacred  as  property  in  chattels  or  in  lands,  and  com- 
pels the  judge  to  do  justice  as  he  sees  it,  though  the  heavens 
fall.  His  manifest  sincerity  and  desire  for  justice  strength- 
ened the  public  respect  for  the  law  which  he  administered, 
and  his  grace  and  charm  of  manner  robbed  defeat  at  his 
hands  of  half  its  bitterness.  It  is  a  fortunate  thing  that  such 
a  man  should  have  sat  upon  the  bench  of  this  great  court 
during  the  formative  period  of  its  growth  in  jurisdiction  and 
power,  —  this  great  court  which  represents  the  highest  type 
of  human  justice,  —  not  the  justice  of  man  to  man  compelled 
by  superior  power,  but  the  justice  of  a  great  people  whom 
no  man  can  compel,  voluntarily  seeking  to  know  what  is  just, 
in  order  that  it  may  do  justice.  It  is  a  fortunate  thing 
that  as  the  scope  and  importance  of  the  court's  functions 
widen  with  the  ever  broadening  and  multiplying  activities  of 
our  country,  and  long  after  the  bench  and  bar  of  this  day 
shall  have  passed  away,  the  benign  influence  of  this  true 
gentleman  and  upright  judge  shall  live  in  report,  in  tradition, 
and  in  the  character  of  the  court  of  which  he  has  been  so 
great  a  part. 


JUSTICE  GEORGE  CARTER-BARRETT 

ADDRESS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  STATE  AT  THE  MEETING  OF  THE 
BENCH  AND  BAR  IN  MEMORY  OF  HONORABLE  GEORGE  CARTER- 
BARRETT,  NEW  YORK  CITY.  NOVEMBER  10,  1906 

AFTER  these  admirable  tributes  to  the  memory  of  our 
departed  friend,  I  can  add  nothing  but  sorrow  for  the 
friend  of  all  my  active  life,  and  homage  for  a  pure,  upright, 
able,  devoted  public  servant.  How  well  I  remember  him  on 
that  day,  nigh  upon  thirty-six  years  ago,  when  he  stood  at 
the  bar  and  made  the  great  argument  that  attracted  to  him 
universal  public  attention  and  led  to  his  nomination  and 
election  to  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court!  Young, 
slender,  nervous,  pale,  trembling  with  energy  and  enthusiasm, 
he  exhibited  on  that  day,  it  seemed  to  me,  qualities  of  great- 
ness that  would  know  no  limit  in  their  development,  except 
the  limit  of  life.  I  have  often  regretted  that  he  went  upon  the 
bench;  because  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  had  the  qualities 
that  would  have  made  him  so  great  at  the  bar,  so  great 
in  the  political  life  of  the  country,  so  great  in  diplomacy, 
so  successful  in  any  branch  of  active  life. 

Yet,  I  have  always  answered  myself  by  the  reflection  that 
he  brought  those  qualities  to  the  bench.  And  it  was  the 
possession  of  the  qualities  that  would  have  made  him  success- 
ful in  the  stir  and  activity  of  life  that  made  him  so  great  a 
judge.  His  control  over  juries  was  marvelous.  The  skill 
with  which  he  directed  the  course  of  a  trial  was  exquisite, 
admirable,  a  perfect  work  of  art.  He  possessed  a  clear, 
definite  conception  of  the  duty  of  a  judge  in  the  trial  of  ques- 
tions of  fact,  and  it  was  one  which  I  think  worthy  of  admira- 
tion.   He  swung  away  freely  and  altogether  from  the  fault, 

241 


242  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

so  common  in  our  American  courts,  of  treating  the  trial  of 
questions  of  fact  before  juries  as  a  game,  in  which  the  lawyers 
on  either  side  are  contending  for  a  prize,  and  in  which  the 
judge  acts  as  a  referee  between  them.  Mr.  Justice  Barrett's 
conception  of  his  duty  upon  the  bench  was  that  he  was  to  see 
justice  done;  that  he  was  to  require  the  counsel  before  him  to 
arrive  with  all  convenient  speed  at  the  determination  of  the 
merits  of  the  case;  and  that  he  was  to  contribute  his  own 
convictions  to  the  right  solution  of  the  question  involved. 
In  his  dealings  with  questions  of  law  he  also  illustrated  a 
quality  not  always  found  upon  our  bench.  He  never  allowed 
justice  to  be  tangled  in  the  net  of  technicality.  His  keen  and 
incisive  intellectual  process  never  stuck  in  the  bark.  Words 
were  nothing  to  him,  but  the  ideas  behind  the  words.  And 
that  sensitive  appreciation  of  every  interest  in  life  which 
graced  him  gave  him  a  just  conception  of  the  relations  which 
statutes  and  rules  of  law,  enacted  or  adopted  perhaps  a  life- 
time, generations  or  centuries  before,  had  to  the  conditions 
of  real  life.  He  interpreted  the  law  in  the  light  of  the  living 
present,  with  all  its  mighty  forces,  with  all  the  requirements 
of  civilization,  of  morality  and  of  justice  in  the  world  of 
today,  and  not  in  the  light  of  centuries  past.  Thus  he  was 
often  in  advance  of  us  all;  his  decision  in  the  lower  court  in 
the  Sugar  Trust  case  —  the  North  River  Sugar  Refining 
Company  case  —  went  to  a  length  to  which  the  Court  of 
Appeals  in  the  same  case  was  unwilling  to  go,  though  affirm- 
ing the  decision.  His  decision  in  that  case  has  found  the 
bench  and  bar  of  the  United  States  now,  fifteen,  twenty 
years  after,  just  reaching  his  sound  and  just  conception  of 
the  demands  of  the  rule  of  the  law  —  the  immemorial  rules 
of  law  —  under  the  conditions  of  our  modern  life. 

He  was  a  great  judge;  he  was  a  true  and  noble  gentleman. 
To  be  his  friend  was  to  have  a  blessing  in  one's  life.  To 
know  him  well  was  to  be  made  better  by  the  compulsion  of 


GEORGE  CARTER-BARRETT  243 

unconscious  imitation.  He  was  a  warm  and  loyal  friend.  He 
will  be  forgotten!  We  cannot  rescue  his  name  from  oblivion. 
We  shall  all  be  forgotten.  There  is  no  immortality  of  the 
bar,  and  there  is,  save  in  the  rarest,  most  exceptional  cases, 
no  immortality  of  the  bench.  He  will  be  forgotten !  But  so 
long  as  the  recurrent  waves  of  error  beat  against  the  struc- 
ture of  American  liberty  founded  upon  justice;  so  long  as  the 
corruption  that  he  whipped  seeks  to  undermine  the  structure; 
so  long  as  the  violence  of  the  demagogue  seeks  to  hurl  the 
mob  against  it,  —  so  long  will  the  influence  of  that  modest, 
retiring,  unostentatious  man  continue  to  live  in  the  work 
that  he  did  in  building  up  the  structure. 


JUSTICE  CHARLES  H.  VAN  BRUNT 

ADDRESS  IN  PRESENTING  TO  THE  APPELLATE  DIVISION  OF  THE 
SUPREME  COURT  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  IN  THE  FIRST 
DEPARTMENT,  A  PORTRAIT  OF  THE  HONORABLE  CHARLES  H. 
VAN  BRUNT,  FIRST  PRESIDING  JUSTICE  OF  THE  COURT, 
JUNE  8,  1897 

I  TAKE  great  pleasure  in  seconding  the  application  made 
by  Mr.  Butler.  It  is  perhaps  too  common  to  defer 
expressions  of  confidence  in  official  servants  until  the  obit- 
uary notice.  The  world  is  full  of  ill-natured  criticisms;  and 
the  kind  things,  the  expressions  of  commendation,  are  seldom 
heard.  Many  a  judge  goes  through  his  entire  official  life 
without  knowing  with  what  confident  reliance  the  bar  and 
the  community  rest  upon  their  belief  in  his  justice,  his  intelli- 
gence, his  devotion  to  the  duties  of  his  office;  and  I  think  it 
is  a  fortunate  thing  that  at  this  point  in  the  career  of  the 
presiding  justice  of  this  court,  after  almost  a  generation 
passed  upon  the  bench,  the  approaching  close  of  his  official 
term  has  led  to  the  presentation  of  this  portrait,  and  has 
given  an  opportunity  to  say  some  kindly  things  and  to  make 
some  expression  of  the  confidence  which  the  bar  and  the 
community  do  feel  in  him. 

Mr.  Justice  Van  Brunt  has  filled  no  ordinary  place  in  the 
judicial  history  of  this  city.  Many  judges  are  learned;  many 
judges  are  able;  many  judges  are  devoted  to  the  public 
service.  Judge  Van  Brunt  is  all  that;  but  he  has  also  played 
a  great  part  in  a  peculiar  and  important  stage  of  development 
in  our  judicial  history.  We  have  been,  during  the  years  of  his 
occupancy  of  the  bench,  passing  imperceptibly  through  a 
course  of  development  from  a  provincial  town  to  a  great 

245 


246  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

metropolis.  We  have  been  passing  through  the  same  kind  of 
development  which  has  changed  the  surface  of  the  country 
about  us  from  open  fields,  over  which  all  the  inhabitants 
could  range  at  will,  to  enclosures  which  are  carefully  guarded 
and  into  which  no  intruders  are  permitted  to  enter;  the  same 
kind  of  development  which  has  changed  the  old-fashioned 
railroad  with  its  absence  of  rule,  so  conducted  that  any  one 
could  stroll  into  a  station  and  upon  a  train  without  any  ques- 
tions being  asked,  into  the  carefully  guarded  railroad  of 
today,  with  stations  where  every  one  is  required  to  move  in 
accordance  with  strict  rule  and  to  have  his  ticket  punched  at 
the  gate,  and  is  not  allowed  to  enter  or  depart  except  in 
accordance  with  rigid  and  prescribed  forms. 

That  same  development  has  proceeded  in  our  judicial  life. 
Great  complication  requires  rigid  system.  The  old  method 
of  trying  and  arguing  causes  according  to  informal  arrange- 
ments between  judges  and  counsel  has  been  outgrown. 
When  Mr.  Justice  Van  Brunt  took  the  position  of  presiding 
justice  of  the  general  term,  he  found  that  the  old  method  of 
transacting  business  had  led  to  an  enormous  accumulation 
before  that  appellate  tribunal.  The  result  of  the  old  country 
way  —  the  good  old  way  of  doing  business  —  was  that  it 
required  between  two  and  three  years  after  the  entry  of  a 
judgment,  to  obtain  a  decision  by  the  general  term.  The 
administration  of  justice,  if  the  whole  machinery  was  not  to 
break  down  and  become  a  denial  of  justice,  called  for  a  man 
with  sufficient  vigor  and  commanding  personality  to  make 
the  change  from  the  old  method  to  the  new  method  of  rule 
and  order.  The  occasion  found  the  man  in  Mr.  Justice  Van 
Brunt.  It  was  a  hard  experience  for  the  bar;  and  in  the 
earlier  days  of  his  presidency  there  was  strong  feeling,  there 
was  great  dissatisfaction,  there  was  personal  resentment;  but 
I  think  the  entire  bar,  old  and  young,  the  entire  community 
which  receives  its  impressions  from  the  bar,  will  unite  with 


CHARLES  H.  VAN  BRUNT  247 

me  in  saying  that  the  conscientious  and  consistent  perform- 
ance of  duty,  the  successful  accomplishment  of  the  task  which 
he  set  before  him,  has  commanded  the  assent,  the  cordial 
agreement,  and  the  admiration  of  all,  no  matter  what  their 
original  opinions  may  have  been.  He  has  brought  order  out 
of  chaos;  he  has  brought  the  administration  of  the  law  to  a 
point  where  justice  can  speedily  be  rendered ;  he  has  accom- 
plished the  great  work  which  was  necessary  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  law  and  of  our  judicial  system  in  this  great 
metropolis.  And  to  him  is  due  a  degree  of  praise  for  that 
work  which  is  due  to  no  other  judicial  officer  during  your 
days  or  mine. 

I  hope  that  this  expiring  term  will  not  be  the  last  of  Mr. 
Justice  Van  Brunt's  judicial  service;  but  that  a  just  recogni- 
tion of  his  worth  and  of  the  service  he  has  rendered  will  lead 
the  people  of  New  York  to  continue  him  for  many  years  in 
rendering  a  like  service  to  the  cause  of  justice,  and  that  for 
many  years  we  may  be  able  to  rely  upon  his  sound  discretion, 
his  decision  of  character,  and  his  underlying  sense  of  justice, 
for  the  determination  of  our  clients'  rights. 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

ADDRESS  OF  SENATOR  ROOT  AT  A  RECEPTION  OF  THE  UNION 

LEAGUE  CLUB  OF  PHILADELPHIA,  IN  HIS  HONOR 

MARCH  23,  1915 

IT  is  very  difficult  to  respond  to  such  expressions  as  I  have 
heard  tonight,  where  my  cooler  judgment  refuses  to  go  in 
agreement,  and  where  I  know  that  a  dispassionate  stranger 
would  withhold  his  approval.  Such  things  as  have  been  said 
within  the  past  hour  are,  however,  inexpressibly  grateful  to 
me,  because  they  reveal  the  wealth  of  friendship  and  the 
partial  judgment  of  affection. 

I  did  not  know  until  a  few  minutes  ago  of  the  purpose  of 
The  Union  League  to  bestow  this  great  honor  upon  me,  in 
the  gift  of  the  medal  of  the  League.  I  accept  it  with  grati- 
tude and  deep  appreciation  which  will  continue  during  all  of 
my  remaining  life.  We  confer  no  titles  of  nobility  in  this 
republic,  but  we  do  what  is  better:  from  the  promptings  of 
patriotic  hearts  we  repay  in  double  measure  to  overflowing, 
every  debt  which  we  think  we  owe  to  a  public  servant  who 
has  commended  himself  to  our  judgment  as  Americans.  No 
title  could  be  worth  so  much  as  your  judgment;  no  office 
could  be  worth  so  much  as  your  approval.  And  it  comes  to 
me  with  all  the  more  weight  because  I  have  a  sentiment  for 
Philadelphia  and  its  people,  and  for  this  club,  that  has  con- 
tinued through  all  my  active  life.  A  throng  of  associations 
compels  me  as  I  come  into  this  old  club-house  to  remember 
the  good  men,  the  strong  men  and  the  noble  hearts  that  I 
knew  in  days  past  who  are  here  no  more.  When  I  remember 
how  great  a  part  this  organization  has  played  in  the  strength 
and  courage  of  this  great  land  of  justice  and  liberty;  when  I 
remember  how  much  I  owe  and  my  children  and  children's 

249 


250  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

children  will  owe  to  you,  to  realize  that  you  are  thanking 
me  seems  almost  too  much  to  believe. 

I  had  been  thinking,  as  I  came  over  in  the  train  this  after- 
noon, of  my  associations  with  Philadelphia,  and  I  found, 
strangely  enough,  that  of  all  the  dear  friends  I  have  known 
here,  my  mind  went  back  constantly  to  McKinley.  I  recall 
how,  eighteen  years  ago,  I  came  here  upon  a  telegram  to 
meet  him,  to  talk  about  the  condition  of  things  in  Spain.  I 
remember  how  he  said,  "  There  is  danger  of  war;  there  must 
not  be  war  with  Spain;  there  shall  not  be  war  with  Spain. 
It  must  be  and  it  shall  be  prevented  at  all  hazards."  Then 
I  thought  of  how  little  any  one  man  can  do.  The  tendencies 
of  the  mighty  eighty  millions  of  people  moved  on  along  the 
path  of  their  destiny,  and  even  that  great  and  skillful  man 
with  all  the  power  of  his  high  office  could  not  prevent  it.  And 
I  remember  how,  a  couple  of  years  after,  one  of  my  first 
journeys  as  a  member  of  his  Cabinet  was  to  come  here  to  this 
club  to  be  with  him  in  one  of  those  great  receptions  for  which 
you  are  so  famous.  And  that  led  to  reflection,  not  upon 
specific  differences  between  President  McKinley  and  this 
Administration,  between  the  legislation  or  the  policies  of  that 
time  and  this,  but  to  reflection  upon  what  in  the  retrospect 
can  be  seen  to  have  been  a  great  nation-wide  movement 
along  the  path  of  the  nation's  unconscious  purpose. 

When  we  elected  McKinley  in  1896  and  again  in  1900,  it 
was  the  business  men  of  the  United  States  who  controlled  the 
election.  It  was  the  general,  the  almost  universal  awakening 
of  judgment  on  the  part  of  men  who  carried  on  the  great 
production  and  commerce  and  transportation  and  finance  in 
the  business  of  this  mighty  and  prosperous  country,  which 
elected  McKinley  and  inaugurated  and  maintained  the 
policies  of  his  administration. 

How  great  has  been  the  change.  The  scepter  has  passed 
from  the  business  man.    The  distinguishing  characteristic  of 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  251 

recent  years  has  been  the  conduct  of  the  government  of  the 
country  by  men  who  have  but  little  concern  with  the  business 
of  the  country,  by  men  who  distrust  the  man  of  business,  who 
suspect  the  man  of  business.  Measures  relating  to  the  great 
business  and  the  small  and  multitudinous  business  of  the 
country  have  been  framed  and  put  into  effect  under  influ- 
ences which  have  rejected  the  voice  of  those  whom  they 
most  immediately  affect.  The  railroad  man's  testimony  of 
what  legislation  there  should  be  affecting  railroads  has  been 
rejected,  because  he  was  a  party  in  interest.  The  banker's 
testimony  about  finance  has  been  rejected  because  he  was  a 
party  in  interest.  The  manufacturer's  testimony  about 
manufacturing  has  been  rejected  because  he  was  a  party  in 
interest.  The  merchant's  testimony  about  commerce  has 
been  rejected  because  he  was  a  party  in  interest.  The  ship- 
owner's testimony  about  the  merchant  marine  has  been 
rejected  because  he  was  a  party  in  interest.  Knowledge  of 
the  business  affairs  of  the  country  has  disqualified  men  from 
taking  any  part  in  the  conduct  of  the  increasing  participation 
of  the  government  in  the  control  and  direction  of  business 
affairs. 

Now,  this  has  not  been  accidental.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
individuals.  It  has  not  come  because  particular  men  have 
been  elected  to  office  and  other  particular  men  have  failed. 
It  has  been  a  development  of  the  feeling  of  the  whole  country; 
it  has  been  to  some  degree  sectional,  but  not  in  the  old  way. 
The  men  concerned  in  agriculture,  in  the  main,  have  come  to 
suspect  and  misunderstand  the  men  concerned  in  business 
in  the  main.  This  is  the  distinguishing  feature  of  this  great 
change  which  has  occurred  since  we  elected  McKinley. 

It  has  had  several  causes.  It  has  been  partly  because  of  the 
old  hatred  of  wealth.  Those  parts  of  the  country  in  which  all 
of  the  people  have  been  of  comparatively  small  means  have 
been  filled  with  men  who  came  to  hate  the  rich  in  the  great 


252  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

industrial  communities  in  the  North  and  East.  Of  course  I 
need  not  tell  you  that  this  hatred  of  wealth  is  more  than  half 
mere  vulgar  worship  of  wealth.  God  knows  that  too  much 
money  does  no  man  any  good;  too  much  money  is  more  apt 
than  not  to  ruin  his  children  and  invite  for  him  kidney  disease 
or  hardening  of  the  arteries. 

But  to  the  poor  farmer  on  the  prairies  of  the  West  or  the 
cotton-fields  of  the  South,  it  seems  as  if  the  rich  men  of  the 
Eastern  cities  were  living  in  heaven  at  his  expense. 

Another  element  of  this  change  has  been  an  entire  or  an 
almost  entire  failure  of  understanding  of  the  processes,  the 
conditions,  the  requirements  and  the  results  of  the  vast  and 
complicated  business  by  which  the  wealth  of  the  country  is 
created  and  maintained.  Under  simple  conditions  we  all 
understood  each  other.  Every  man  of  the  community 
understood  in  general  about  the  life,  the  business  and  affairs 
of  the  other  men  in  the  same  community.  But  life  is  so  com- 
plicated now,  the  affairs  of  this  great  country  are  so  involved, 
that  there  is  very  little  real  understanding  by  one  community 
of  the  affairs  of  another.  How  can  the  man  who  raises  a  crop 
of  wheat  in  Dakota  really  understand  the  complicated 
machinery  by  which  his  wheat  goes  onto  the  breakfast  table 
in  Europe,  and  the  price  comes  back  to  him  ?  So,  through  a 
feeling  of  envy  of  the  greater  wealth  of  the  East  and  North, 
of  these  industrial  communities  of  which  this  city  is  a 
conspicuous  example,  and  through  misunderstandings,  there 
has  come  about  a  feeling  of  adverse  interest  instead  of  the 
feeling  of  common  interest  that  is  so  essential  to  the  pros- 
perity and  perpetuity  of  a  country.  And  that  feeling  has  had 
its  result  in  a  series  of  laws  and  in  the  method  of  admin- 
istering those  laws.  We  have  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  following  every  step  taken  by  the  great  trans- 
portation companies.  Understand,  I  am  not  now  criticising 
these  laws.    I  am  citing  them  as  elements  —  stating  them  as 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  253 

facts;  but  forming  elements  in  a  general  condition  to  which 
they  lead.  We  have  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission 
keeping  tab  on  the  railroads.  We  have  the  Central  Reserve 
Board  of  the  Treasury  Department  and  the  office  of  the 
Comptroller  of  Currency  following  every  move  of  the  banks. 
We  have  the  new  Trade  Commission  which  is  empowered  to 
go  into  your  factories  and  mills  and  inquire  into  your  per- 
sonal affairs  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  you  conform 
to  that  vague  and  indefinite  standard  which  they  are  to  apply 
to  trade.  We  have  the  Internal  Revenue  Collector  empow- 
ered to  go  into  your  personal  affairs  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing  whether  your  returns  for  the  graduated  income  tax 
are  full  and  complete.  We  have  the  Pure  Food  law,  under 
which  a  vast  range  of  production  is  subjected  to  inspection 
and  regulation  in  the  most  minute  detail.  Everywhere,  in 
every  direction,  supervision  of  business  is  the  characteristic 
of  the  day. 

And  with  the  exercise  of  power  over  business  under  the 
Constitution  as  it  is,  comes  the  desire  for  enlargement  of 
power,  so  we  have  proposals  for  amendments  to  the  Con- 
stitution which  will  give  to  the  national  Government  oppor- 
tunity to  extend  and  increase  its  control  over  the  conduct  of 
affairs  in  every  state  and  in  every  locality.  That  finds  its 
outlet  first  in  matters  that  have  much  popularity.  The 
proposal  to  amend  the  Constitution  by  putting  in  a  prohi- 
bition amendment,  is  the  first  step  toward  national  control 
of  sumptuary  laws  directing  what  shall  and  shall  not  be  done 
in  every  community;  amendments  to  the  Constitution  in 
respect  of  the  franchise,  to  direct  who  in  every  state  shall  or 
shall  not  have  the  right  to  the  elective  franchise.  In  general, 
the  great  industrial  communities  of  the  North  and  East  are 
more  and  more  being  subjected  to  government  control  and 
regulation  by  the  people  of  the  parts  of  the  country  that 
know  little  of  the  business  of  the  country. 


254  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

I  say  the  scepter  has  passed.  The  control  has  changed, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  there  lies 
the  reason  for  the  stagnation,  the  hesitation,  the  timidity,  the 
unwillingness  of  American  enterprise  today.  You  cannot  say 
it  was  the  tariff  alone.  You  cannot  say  it  is  the  restrictions 
upon  the  trusts,  the  suits  against  the  trusts  or  the  great 
corporations  which  are  called  the  trusts,  alone.  You  cannot 
say  it  is  the  Clayton  law  or  the  Trade  Commission  law  alone. 
But  the  men  who  are  controlling  the  government  of  our 
country  today  are  men  who  have  been  fighting  the  tariff  so 
many  years;  have  been  fighting  the  trusts,  or  what  they 
thought  were  the  trusts  —  the  great  corporations  —  so  long; 
have  been  fighting  the  railroad  companies,  the  express  com- 
panies and  the  telegraph  companies  so  long;  have  been 
fighting  the  banks  and  the  bankers  so  long,  that  when  they 
come  to  administer  the  Government  of  the  United  States  they 
cannot  rid  themselves  of  an  underlying  hostility  to  American 
enterprise.  Many  of  them  are  good  and  sensible  men,  and 
patriotic  American  citizens  —  friends  of  mine  and  friends  of 
all  of  us.  I  have  talked  with  them  personally  and  they  do  not 
believe  it,  but  it  is  true.  Underlying  all  their  actions  is  an 
uneradicated  but  not  uneradicable  hostility  to  the  men  who 
they  think  have  profited  unduly  by  the  tariff,  to  the  men 
who  they  think  have  unduly  profited  by  the  trusts,  to  the 
men  who  they  think  have  profited  unduly  by  the  control  of 
the  banking  funds  of  the  country,  and  to  the  men  who  they 
think  have  made  undue  profits  or  dividends  out  of  the  rail- 
roads and  the  enterprises  that  surround  the  proper  adminis- 
tration of  a  railroad.  And  the  reason  why  business  does  not 
start  is  because  way  down  in  the  heart  of  Americans  there  is 
a  doubt  as  to  what  is  going  to  happen  at  the  hands  of  a 
hostile  Government. 

Now,  what  is  going  to  be  done  about  it  ?  It  is  not  some- 
thing to  be  disposed  of  by  conquest.    It  is  not  something 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  255 

which  we  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  disposing  of  by  mere 
votes.  Merely  electing  a  Republican  President  in  1916  ought 
not  to  be  enough.  The  country  cannot  live  and  prosper  with 
such  misunderstanding.  The  people  who  are  doing  these 
things  are  honest  and  good  Americans,  but  they  misunder- 
stand a  great  part  of  the  country.  They  do  not  realize  that 
you  do  your  business  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  on  the  same 
principles  that  they  use  when  they  drive  a  load  of  wheat  to 
the  elevator  or  a  load  of  potatoes  to  the  nearest  town  — 
upon  no  other  principles,  just  as  honestly  and  fairly.  All  the 
glamor  of  occasional  wealth  and  the  magnitude  of  operations 
have  blinded  them  to  the  essential  identity  of  the  way  in 
which  they  do  their  business  and  the  way  in  which  you  do 
yours.  1  say  that  this  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  continue; 
this  misunderstanding  ought  to  be  cleared  away.  It  is  a 
question,  it  is  a  serious  question,  it  is  a  question  again  of 
preserving  the  Union,  for  we  cannot  live  with  that  kind 
of  misunderstanding  between  the  people  of  one  section  and 
the  people  of  other  sections. 

Now  the  first  thing  which  is  plain  is  that  the  business  men 
of  America,  the  honest,  reliable,  good,  fair  citizens  who  are 
doing  the  great  business  of  our  country,  should  become  vocal 
and  take  pains  to  see  to  it  that  they  are  no  longer  misrep- 
resented or  misunderstood.  What  does  an  honest  and  fair 
man  do  when  he  finds  that  somebody  whose  good  opinion  he 
respects,  misunderstands  him  ?  He  does  not  try  to  shoot  the 
other  fellow  or  injure  him;  he  tries  to  remove  the  misunder- 
standing, and  that  is  what  we  ought  to  do.  The  business  men 
of  America  should  wake  up  —  get  out  of  the  condition  of 
mind  which  they  have  been  in  for  some  time  past,  in  which 
they  have  taken  all  sorts  of  misrepresentations  and  aspersions 
lying  down.  They  should  assert  themselves;  they  should  put 
upon  foot  a  campaign  of  education  and  instruction  for  a 
clearing  of  the  air,  so  that  all  over  our  broad  land  every 


256  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

American  may  come  to  respect  every  other  American  in 
whatever  business  he  may  be  engaged;  so  that  American 
citizenship  shall  be  forever  for  the  American  citizen  a  title  of 
respect  and  regard  and  brotherly  affection.  We  ought  to  put 
an  end  to  the  condition  in  which  a  number  of  the  people  in 
our  country  feel  no  regret  at  the  disasters  of  the  people  of 
other  parts  of  the  country.  It  is  not  an  easy  task,  for  this  is  a 
tremendous  country.  But  if  the  men  who  elected  McKinley 
will  rise  to  the  same  standard  of  courage  and  determin- 
ation that  prevailed  in  1896  and  1900,  the  task  can  be 
accomplished. 

We  have  had  missionaries  of  reform,  missionaries  of  new 
theories,  missionaries  of  every  kind  and  character,  except 
missionaries  of  good  understanding.  The  business  men  of 
America  should  undertake  their  mission  to  make  themselves 
understood  by  the  people  of  America. 

There  is  one  other  thing  I  want  to  say,  and  that  is  that  all 
this  regulation,  and  inspection,  and  inquiry  into  the  affairs  of 
the  business  man,  present  a  danger  that  can  be  met  in  only 
one  way.  There  is  a  tendency  for  the  railroads  to  be  afraid  of 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  and  for  the  banks  to 
be  afraid  of  the  Central  Reserve  Board  and  the  Comptroller 
of  Currency,  and  for  the  express  companies  to  be  afraid  of  the 
Postmaster-General,  and  for  the  industrial  establishments  to 
be  afraid  of  the  new  Trade  Commission,  and  for  the  manu- 
facturers of  everything  that  comes  under  the  Pure  Food  law 
to  be  afraid  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  It  is  a  critical 
question  for  the  people  of  the  United  States,  whether  that 
fear  is  going  to  control.  For  if  it  does,  the  power  will  be 
abused.  There  is  only  one  way  to  meet  that  kind  of  power, 
and  that  is  with  courage. 

What  happens  today  or  tomorrow  is  of  little  consequence. 
The  tendencies  of  a  nation  are  all  that  count.    If  we  permit 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  257 

by  cowardice  or  timidity;  by  cringing  before  official  power  — 
if  we  permit  a  great  body  of  bureaucracy  to  establish  itself 
in  control  over  the  affairs  of  our  daily  lives,  the  most  vital 
possession  of  a  free  people  will  be  destroyed;  that  is,  the 
independence  of  individual  character. 

I  grieve  to  see  business  halting,  to  see  men  out  of  work,  to 
see  honest  people  deprived  of  their  income,  to  see  the  pains  of 
contracting  expenditure  in  the  household,  to  see  the  unem- 
ployed on  the  street;  but  all  of  that  is  nothing  compared  with 
the  danger  that  the  people  cf  the  United  States  shall  become 
subservient  to  power;  all  that  is  nothing  compared  with  the 
danger  that  we  lose  all  independence  of  individual  character 
which  has  been  built  up  through  all  the  thousands  of  years 
of  growth  of  Anglo-Saxon  freedom.  If  we  maintain  that, 
nothing  can  prevail  against  us.  If  we  lose  it,  we  are  slaves  to 
the  first  conqueror.  The  subject  is  too  high  and  too  great  for 
politics.  I  would  not  venture  to  treat  it  as  a  political  ques- 
tion, for  it  goes  to  the  very  basis  of  the  future  of  our  beloved 
country. 

It  seems  now  that  it  is  the  important  mission  of  the 
Republican  party  to  reassert  the  individual  independence, 
the  individual  rights,  the  individual  integrity  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States.  We  are  not  justly  subjects  of  suspicion. 
We  are  not  justly  subjects  of  condemnation.  We  are  citizens 
of  these  great  states,  of  these  busy  communities  of  industry. 
We  are  honest,  free,  true  Americans,  and  we  must  not  and 
we  will  not  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion  and  distrust. 
We  will  not  be  governed  by  men  who  look  upon  us  as  unfit  to 
participate  in  government. 

The  mission  of  this  Union  League  is  not  ended.  Not  only 
is  eternal  vigilance  the  price  of  liberty;  eternal  struggle  is  the 
price  of  liberty.  You  have  again  to  strike  with  the  weapons 
of  your  intelligence  and  your  courage  upon  the  battlefields  of 


258  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

public  discussion,  of  public  education  and  instruction;  to 
strike  and  yet  again  to  strike  with  all  your  power  for  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union,  for  the  continuance  of  freedom,  for 
the  sure  foundations  of  justice,  for  the  memory  of  the  great 
man  who  gave  you  birth  as  an  organization.  In  your 
efforts  you  have  my  prayers,  and  always  my  grateful  and 
affectionate  remembrance. 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  AMERICAN 

IDEALS 

i 

ADDRESS  AT  A  DINNER  OF  THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB,  CHICAGO 
ILLINOIS,  IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THE  BIRTHDAY 
OF  WASHINGTON,   FEBRUARY  22,  1904 

AFTER  engaging  your  attention  for  more  than  an  hour 
this  afternoon,1  it  seems  to  me  that  I  ought  this  evening 
to  do  nothing  more  than  acknowledge  the  courtesy  and  the 
kindness  which  I  knew  1  should  receive  at  your  hands,  and 
which  have  exceeded  my  anticipations  tenfold,  and  with  but 
few  formal  words  to  take  my  seat.  I  have  not  meant,  and  1 
do  not  mean,  to  make  a  speech;  but  I  cannot  find  it  in  my 
mind  to  refrain  from  saying  a  few  words  to  you  as  I  would  if 
but  a  half-dozen  of  us  were  sitting  around  the  club  table,  — 
a  few  words  about  the  things  that  account  for  the  existence 
of  this  club,  that  account  for  my  being  here;  a  few  words 
about  the  real  significance,  the  underlying  meaning  of  our 
presence  here  together  tonight.  Why  are  we  joined  in  a  com- 
mon purpose  ?  What  are  you  to  each  other  aside  from  your 
business  associations  ?  What  are  you  to  me  and  I  to  you, 
apart  from  a  few  personal  and  dear  friends  whom  I  have 
here  ?  Of  course,  it  is  because  we  are  Americans;  we  are 
patriotic  citizens;  we  love  our  country.  But  what  does  that 
mean  ?  Is  it  real  ?  Is  it  something  really  a  moving  power  in 
our  lives,  or  is  it  perfunctory  —  something  on  the  surface  ? 
I  think  it  is  worth  while  for  us  occasionally  to  put  that  ques- 
tion to  ourselves;  worth  while  for  us  now  and  then  to  bring 
home  to  ourselves  the  real  meaning  of  the  meetings  we  attend, 

1  See  address  on  "  The  Ethics  of  the  Panama  Question,"  pp.  175-206  in  Addresses 
on  International  Subjects,  Harvard  University  Press,  1916. 


260  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

of  the  things  we  say  and  the  sentiments  we  applaud;  the 
real  meaning  of  the  patriotic  expressions  that  have  come 
with  such  eloquence  from  the  learned  judge 1  who  has  stepped 
down  from  the  bench  to  speak  to  us  tonight;  and  to  consider 
how  far  we,  each  one  of  us,  are  carrying  into  our  daily  lives 
the  obligation  that  is  correlative  to  these  expressions  and  to 
these  sentiments. 

It  has  been  my  fortune  for  the  last  few  years  to  study  very 
closely  the  methods  and  the  fortunes  of  many  republics,  of 
many  peoples  who  have  been  living  under  laws  framed  with 
the  same  apparent  and  ostensible  purpose  as  our  own  laws; 
some  people  living  under  constitutions  framed  upon  the 
model  of  our  own;  and  to  see  misrule,  lack  of  confidence, 
stagnation  of  all  material  enterprise,  and  lack  of  progress  in 
spiritual  things  as  well  as  material  things;  to  study  the  rea- 
sons why  those  peoples  fail  to  realize  the  blessings  that  we 
have  enjoyed.  The  prosperity  that  we  have  does  not  come  of 
itself.  The  enormous  increase  of  wealth  which  has  made 
possible  the  great  things  done  by  our  country  in  our  lifetime, 
has  not  come  of  itself.  These  things  have  come  because  we 
have  had  a  people  who  were  willing  to  submit  themselves  to 
the  control  of  law;  a  people  who,  whatever  were  their 
individual  interests  at  the  time,  whatever  were  the  motives 
that  actuated  them  at  the  time,  whatever  they  were  inter- 
ested in  at  the  time,  have  under  it  all  held  up  consciously  or 
unconsciously  the  rule  of  law,  the  dominion  of  justice,  the 
interests  of  human  liberty,  the  open  pathway  of  individual 
opportunity  as  superior  to  all  things  else.  It  has  been  because 
the  great  body  of  American  people  have  held  close  to  the 
principles  established  and  illustrated  and  enforced  by  the 
man  whom  we  celebrate  today,  that  we  are  great  and  pros- 
perous and  powerful  in  the  world.  And  it  has  been  because 
a  great  multitude  of  men  in  America  have  individually  and 

1  Emory  Speir,  of  Georgia. 


PRESERVATION  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALS        261 

personally  promoted  those  principles,  and  still  hold  dearer 
than  our  own  individual  money-making  and  property- 
accumulating,  and  pleasure-loving  instincts,  the  principles  of 
liberty  and  justice,  that  we  are  the  great  people  that  we  are. 

I  said  these  things  do  not  come  of  themselves,  and  they  do 
not  continue  of  themselves.  Our  prosperity  depends  upon 
our  continuing  the  principles  that  underlie  it.  Each  one  of 
us  (though  he  may  not  attain  to  fame  and  distinction  and 
power)  is  contributing  his  share  towards  the  prosperity  of 
today.  And  more  than  that,  each  one  of  us  is  responsible  for 
the  continuance  of  this  government  of  law  and  liberty  which 
we  hope  to  hand  down  to  our  children  and  our  children's 
children;  and  it  is  because  of  the  conscious  or  unconscious 
comradeship  and  fellowship  in  the  promotion  of  the  rule  of 
justice  and  liberty  and  law,  of  freedom  upon  earth,  that  we 
are  here  good  friends  together  tonight.  I  am  just  old  enough 
to  remember  as  a  boy  in  the  days  before  the  Civil  War  how 
the  speeches  of  our  Fourth  of  July  orators  rang  false,  and  the 
talk  about  the  flag  and  the  spreading  of  the  eagle  was 
laughed  at  and  derided  until  the  day  came  when  the  flag,  the 
emblem  of  American  sovereignty,  acquired  a  new  meaning, 
and  to  the  faces  that  laughed  came  serious  and  deep  deter- 
mination to  maintain  the  government  that  meant  so  much. 
The  days  may  come  again  when  those  emblems  of  sovereignty 
will  mean  little.  Be  it  our  task  to  see  that  those  days  are  far 
distant;  not  by  services  which  gain  public  applause,  —  that 
means  little,  it  is  of  no  worth  when  the  end  comes;  but  by 
each  man's  doing  his  part  to  perpetuate  institutions  that  give 
us  what  we  have  and  make  us  what  we  are.  And  in  this  great 
country  which  received  between  the  census  of  1850  and  the 
census  of  1900  over  17,000,000  of  emigrants  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  over  17,000,000  of  men  who  knew  little 
or  nothing  of  the  meaning  of  American  freedom  and  Ameri- 
can law;   in  this  great  country,  so  many  millions  of  whose 


262  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

inhabitants  are  far  removed  from  the  centers  of  thought  and 
influence,  the  active,  earnest  effort  of  every  true  American 
who  loves  his  country,  who  wishes  for  his  children  and  his 
children's  children  the  liberty  and  justice  and  opportunity  he 
has  enjoyed,  is  due  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

Within  the  last  few  days  the  world  has  been  startled  to 
admiration  by  the  wonderful  dash  of  the  Japanese  torpedo 
fleet.  Two  lessons  we  may  learn  from  that.  One  is  that  con- 
fidence in  mere  bigness,  confidence  in  the  power  of  numbers 
and  extent  of  territory,  confidence  in  enormous  wealth  and 
old  traditions,  is  ill  placed  when  in  the  swiftly  changing  affairs 
of  man  a  strong  and  vigorous  assailant  attacks  the  citadel 
which  seemed  secure.  And  the  other  is  that  the  supreme 
possession  of  a  country  is  the  devotion  of  its  sons.  The 
reason  why  the  little  Japanese  torpedo  boats  were  able  to 
destroy  the  power  of  great  Russia  on  the  sea,  was  that  the 
Japanese  hold  the  love  of  country,  the  ideal  of  the  State,  to 
a  degree  that  has  never  been  equalled  since  the  days  when 
Rome  conquered  the  world.  I  remember  well  when  all  the 
world  was  watching  the  fate  of  the  beleaguered  legations  in 
Peking,  when  the  rescue  from  the  crowding  millions  of  China 
who  had  gathered  about  them  seemed  hopeless,  a  little  band 
inadequate  in  numbers,  pressing  toward  the  capital  of  China, 
met  the  strong  defenses  of  Tien-tsin;  and  when  the  little 
force  of  English  and  Japanese  and  Americans  assailed  that 
city,  a  little  Japanese  swam  the  moat  and  placed  a  mine 
against  the  gate  and  cheerfully  blew  it  up  —  blew  up  the 
gate  and  blew  himself  into  that  heaven  where  the  Japanese 
go.  He  went  to  his  death,  not  with  desperation,  not  merely 
with  stern  determination  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  his 
life  for  his  country,  but  he  went  gladly  and  joyously,  happy 
if  by  his  poor,  single  life  he  could  advance  the  fortunes  of  his 
beloved  Japan.  That  is  the  kind  of  patriotism  that  makes 
nations  great,  and  it  was  that  spirit  that  in  a  day  destroyed 


PRESERVATION  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALS       263 

the  sea  power  of  proud  Russia.  In  all  our  material  wealth,  in 
all  the  selfishness  and  luxury  of  these  modern  days,  be  it  our 
work  to  promote  among  the  people  of  America  that  spirit  of 
patriotism,  the  love  of  country  which  holds  gold  as  nothing 
for  the  country's  sake. 

Some  one  did  me  the  honor  not  long  ago  to  speak  of  me  as 
an  optimist.  I  hope  I  am.  I  deem  pessimism  little  short  of 
treason.  An  optimist  ?  Yes.  Because  I  believe  in  my  coun- 
try. It  is  not  the  incidents  of  life  that  are  significant.  In  all 
the  history  of  this  imperfect  and  erring  world  there  will  be 
unfortunate,  sad,  and  deplorable  incidents.  Men  will  go 
wrong.  Love  of  gain,  ambition,  will  turn  aside  public  ser- 
vants from  their  duty.  It  is  not  the  incidents  of  life,  it  is  the 
tendencies  of  life  that  we  are  to  regard.  How  sets  the  cur- 
rent ?  Are  we  moving  toward  the  goal  of  high  ideals  ?  Are 
we  sinking  back  from  them  ?  That  is  the  important  ques- 
tion. The  play  of  the  waves  tells  little.  The  breaking  of 
successive  rolling  breakers  upon  the  shore  tells  us  nothing 
of  whether  the  tide  is  rising  or  falling.  No  matter  which  way 
the  wave  is  rolling.  Does  the  tide,  the  great  tide  of  public 
morality,  the  great  tide  of  public  conscience,  set  toward  our 
high  ideals  ?  And,  marking  the  course  of  human  affairs  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  not  comparing  what  we  are  and  what 
we  do  with  some  ideal  standard  of  perfection,  but  comparing 
them  with  what  we  were  and  what  we  have  done  in  the  past, 
we  are  to  gather  the  answer  to  the  supreme  question  —  com- 
paring weak  and  imperfect  men  of  today  with  weak  and 
imperfect  men  of  the  century  past. 

If  you  will  study  our  history  and  the  lives  of  our  great  men, 
if  you  will  read  the  records  of  the  first  Congress  and  the  first 
Administration,  you  will  find  that  there  has  been  steady  and 
uninterrupted  progress  along  the  upward  pathway  of  Ameri- 
can ideals.  You  will  find  that  the  newspapers  of  today,  even 
the  yellow  journals,  bad  as  they  are,  are  not  so  bad  as  those 


264  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

that  maligned  Washington.  You  will  find  that  the  evils  in 
public  life,  which  are  the  objects  of  criticism  and  of  abhor- 
rence by  the  good  people  of  America  today,  are  the  things 
which  were  passed  without  comment  a  half -century  ago;  and 
the  things  which  were  the  objects  of  criticism  and  abhor- 
rence a  half -century  ago  were  the  things  which  passed  without 
comment  a  half -century  before  that.  The  very  things  which 
we  criticise,  the  very  denunciations  of  public  life  today,  are 
evidences  of  an  awakened  conscience  and  advanced  morality, 
because  we  are  criticising  the  things  that  but  a  few  years 
since  were  not  considered  reprehensible,  or,  if  they  were,  did 
not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  public  attention. 

I  believe  that  there  never  has  been  a  time  when  the  public 
morality  of  America  was  purer  or  better  than  it  is  today; 
that  there  never  has  been  a  time  when  the  conscience  of 
America  has  been  more  sensitive  in  the  rules  which  it  has 
applied  to  the  conduct  of  public  men;  that  there  never 
has  been  a  time  when  public  servants  responded  to  a  higher 
standard  of  obligation  in  their  representation  of  the  people 
both  in  executive  and  in  legislative  life  than  today.  The 
tendency  is  rising;  the  tide  sets  in  the  right  direction.  And 
how  great  is  the  prospect.  How  noble  and  elevating  are  the 
possibilities  of  the  future.  Going  through  our  period  of 
isolation,  passing  beyond  the  time  of  selfishness  where  we 
were  making  our  government  for  ourselves  and  thinking  only 
of  our  own  interests,  there  is  opening  before  us  the  vista  of 
missionary  life.  I  have  always  thought  that  there  was  in  the 
first  French  Republic  an  element  of  nobility  never  before 
equalled  in  human  history.  Misguided  as  they  often  were, 
untrained  as  they  were  in  the  application  of  the  good  and 
noble  principles  which  they  professed,  still  the  men  of  the 
first  French  Republic  believed  in  the  principles  of  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity,  and  they  were  filled  with  a  noble 
enthusiasm  to  carry  those  principles  throughout  the  earth, 


PRESERVATION  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALS        265 

as  the  old  missionaries  carried  the  cross  through  heathen 
lands.  If  we  believe  what  we  say;  if  we  believe  that  the  free 
institutions  under  which  we  live  are  adapted  to  lift  up  the 
masses  of  mankind  out  of  the  hard  and  degraded  conditions 
under  which  they  have  lived  in  all  human  history;  if  we 
believe  that  the  liberty  and  justice  that  prevail  under  this 
flag  of  ours  are  competent  to  bless  mankind  and  bring  in  a 
day  of  loftier  and  happier  life  for  all  the  world,  there  opens 
before  us  now  the  opportunity  to  testify  to  our  belief. 

One  step  we  have  made  in  teaching  Cuba  how  to  govern 
herself  and  starting  her  under  her  single  star,  that  represents 
the  aspirations  and  the  struggles  of  so  many  a  year  of  sacri- 
fice and  of  danger.  Another  step  we  are  making  now  in 
trying  to  train  the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands  in  the 
first  lessons  of  ordered  liberty  and  to  teach  them  how  to 
govern  themselves  with  justice  and  respect  for  law.  Another 
lies  before  us:  To  show  in  the  Isthmus,  to  the  people  of 
Central  and  South  America,  the  true  conception  of  liberty. 
Not  the  liberty  under  which  each  man  is  to  grasp  all  he  can 
of  government  and  government  revenues.  Not  the  liberty  of 
constant  rebellion  and  revolution,  but  the  liberty  of  order 
and  law,  the  liberty  of  individual  opportunity  and  regulated 
power.  I  believe  that  the  events  which  will  culminate  to- 
morrow in  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  giving  us  the  right  to 
construct  the  canal  across  the  Isthmus  will  result  in  setting 
up  for  the  people  of  South  America  a  standard  of  good 
government,  a  respect  for  law,  for  the  practical  application 
of  the  principles  of  liberty  and  justice,  of  which  they  have 
had  no  knowledge  before;  and  that  the  American  people  will 
carry  to  the  people  of  all  those  southern  countries  blessings 
which  will  come  back  to  us  a  thousand  fold  in  our  own 
happiness  and  our  own  prosperity. 

And  for  all  this,  it  is  not  the  success  of  today's  speculation, 
it  is  not  the  building  of  more  palaces  and  more  great  public 


266  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

buildings,  it  is  not  the  accumulation  of  power,  it  is  not  honor 
and  glory  among  foreign  nations;  it  is  the  preservation 
among  the  people  of  the  United  States  of  the  ideals  that  have 
made  us  what  we  are.  All  that  has  made  our  prosperity  is  the 
confidence,  the  security,  the  safety,  of  American  institutions. 
All  that  will  make  the  prosperity  of  our  children,  all  that  will 
make  possible  the  continued  progress  of  this  greatest  instru- 
mentality since  the  dawn  of  history  for  human  good,  is  the 
preservation  of  the  ideals  of  individual  liberty  and  equal 
justice.  No  man  can  fail  to  do  his  part  toward  preserving 
these  among  his  fellow-men  in  America  and  not  be  false  to  his 
children,  false  to  his  own  higher  interests,  false  to  his  country. 
And  sharing  in  the  hope  of  promoting  these  American  ideals, 
I  am  here  your  friend,  and  your  friend  so  long  as  life  lasts. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  NINETY-NINTH  ANNUAL  BANQUET  OF  THE 

NEW  ENGLAND  SOCIETY  OF  NEW  YORK 

DECEMBER  22,  1904 

Those  who  desire  the  complete  exposition  of  Mr.  Root's  views  on  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  should  read  also  his  eighth  presidential  address  before  the  American  Society 
of  International  Law,  April  22,  1914  (Addresses  an  International  Subjects,  pp. 
105-123.     Harvard  University  Press,  1916.) 

JUDGE  HOWLAND  has  well  said  that  our  forefathers  are 
not  to  be  judged  by  the  standards  of  today.  It  is  equally 
true  that  their  descendants  are  not  to  be  judged  by  the  stand- 
ards of  their  day.  Our  opportunities,  the  scope  and  power  of 
our  American  life  today,  afford  no  recourse  or  refuge  from 
responsibility  in  imitation  of  the  practices  to  which  they 
were  obliged  to  resort  for  the  preservation  of  life  and  the 
state,  when,  surrounded  by  hostile  foes,  contending  against 
harsh  conditions,  they  led  their  life  of  severe  and  relentless 
strife.  Our  opportunities  are  world-wide;  they  are  the  oppor- 
tunities of  peace  and  justice,  of  civilization  and  brotherhood 
for  all  mankind;  and  the  principles  which,  under  their  nar- 
row and  harsh  conditions,  made  the  Puritans  great,  can 
make  us  great,  not  by  doing  as  they  did,  but  by  living  in  the 
spirit  in  which  they  wrought;  not  by  achieving  the  results 
which  they  achieved,  in  the  way  in  which  they  achieved 
them,  but  by  doing  the  work  that  lies  at  our  hands  in  the 
way  pointed  out  by  the  conditions  which  surround  us.  We 
have  had  within  a  few  days  in  this  city  a  great  meeting  of  the 
advocates  of  peace,  a  meeting  designed  to  promote  the  prin- 
ciples of  arbitration  among  nations,  and  with  the  purpose  of 
that  meeting,  with  the  things  that  were  said  and  the  results 

267 


268  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

which  it  sought  to  accomplish,  I  heartily  agree,  and  I  believe 
all  of  you  agree.  But  after  all,  the  true  way  to  accomplish 
peace  among  men  is  to  promote  justice  among  men,  and  good 
understanding,  for  all  wars  come  from  misunderstandings  or 
injustice,  a  failure  of  some  one  to  do  his  duty  to  his  fellow- 
men;  and  if  the  nations  of  the  earth  will  seek  to  realize  their 
obligations  to  each  other,  to  do  their  duty,  with  consideration, 
with  regard  for  the  rights  of  others,  the  reign  of  peace  will 
be  here.  The  obligation  that  rests  upon  us  is  the  obligation 
to  understand  not  only  our  own  rights  but  our  own  duties. 
In  a  republic  the  great  issues  of  peace  and  war  are  deter- 
mined not  by  presidents  and  congresses,  not  by  officers  in 
any  station,  but  by  the  people  themselves;  and  the  first 
necessary  element  of  enduring  peace  is  an  adequate  and  clear 
understanding,  by  the  people  who  make  war  or  preserve 
peace,  of  their  rights  and  of  those  obligations  which  are 
always  correlative  to  rights. 

The  peaceful,  patient,  and  long-suffering  President  Mc- 
Kinley  sought  with  all  his  earnestness  and  his  wonderful 
skill  to  avoid  war  with  Spain.  But  the  gathering  indignation 
of  the  people  compelled  war.  Ten  years  ago  we  were  brought 
to  the  verge  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain  by  a  position  taken 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  which,  with  almost  any 
other  power  in  Christendom,  would  have  produced  immediate 
war,  and  the  people  were  ready  for  it,  although  we  were 
wholly  unprepared.  But  a  few  weeks  ago  the  English  people 
were  eager  for  a  war  over  the  Doggers  Bank  incident,  the 
firing  on  the  fishing  boats  by  the  Russian  fleet;  and  the 
terrible  results  of  a  conflict  between  Great  Britain  and 
Russia  were  averted  only  by  the  skillful  statesmanship  of 
Mr.  Balfour  and  Lord  Lansdowne.  The  most  essential  thing 
for  peace  among  men  is  that  the  people  who  make  peace  or 
make  war  shall  understand,  shall  have  reflected  upon,  the 
questions  which  give  rise  to  peace  or  war. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  269 

The  only  relation  which  carries  the  possibilities  of  war  for 
this  country  is  that  created  by  the  adherence  of  the  American 
people  to  the  doctrine  which  is  called  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 
Twenty  years  ago  next  year  Mr.  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  that  wise 
and  astute  statesman,  wrote  a  letter,  since  famous,  which 
was  the  basis  of  our  entire  system  of  coast  defense,  upon 
which  we  have  already  expended  over  sixty  millions  of  dol- 
lars, and  are  expending  another  sixty  millions.  And  the 
fundamental  proposition  upon  which  he  based  the  necessity 
of  that  expenditure  was  the  danger  of  war  arising  from  the 
assertion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  imminent  danger  of 
war  over  the  Venezuela  matter  ten  years  ago  arose  upon 
the  assertion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  As  the  nations  of  the 
earth  grow  greater,  as  by  the  very  reign  of  peace,  by  the 
termination  of  internal  discord,  by  the  doing  away  with 
famine  and  with  pestilence,  by  the  advance  of  hygiene  and 
medical  science,  by  the  advance  of  means  of  communication, 
the  advance  of  charity,  of  good  administration,  the  Malthu- 
sian  checks  to  population  disappear,  the  surplus  energies  of 
the  nations  are  sending  their  population  out  to  the  whole 
unpeopled  surface  of  the  earth.  Each  nation  is  jostling 
against  the  other,  and  every  nation  is  preparing  to  maintain 
and  defend  its  rights  against  all  who  infringe  upon  them  in 
the  closer  contact  and  conflict  of  modern  life. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  is  an  assertion  on  the  part  of 
America: 

1.  That  no  part  of  the  American  continent  is  justly 
subject  to  colonization  by  any  European  power. 

2.  That  the  interposition  of  any  foreign  power  for  the 
purpose  of  oppressing  or  controlling  in  any  other  manner 
the  destiny  of  any  American  people  will  be  regarded  as  an 
unfriendly  act  to  the  United  States. 

3.  That  any  attempt  by  a  European  nation  to  extend  its 
system  to  the  American  continent  will  be  regarded  as  danger- 


270  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

ous  to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  United  States.  And  to  that 
was  added,  in  1845,  by  President  Polk,  the  further  item  that 
no  future  European  colony  or  dominion  should  with  our 
consent  be  planted  or  established  upon  our  continent.  And 
that  last  extension  applies  to  any  voluntary  transfer  of  the 
territory  of  an  American  country  to  any  European  power. 

The  questions  which  are  liable  to  arise  under  that  assertion 
of  American  right  will  not  come  by  a  frontal  attack;  by  any 
broad  and  unqualified  denial  of  our  right  to  maintain  that 
doctrine  as  a  rule  of  national  safety.  In  the  long  process  of 
years  I  think  we  can  safely  say  that  there  has  been  gradually 
accumulated  such  a  weight  of  assent  upon  the  part  of  foreign 
nations  to  our  rights  to  assert  and  maintain  this  doctrine  that 
it  is  no  longer  open  to  question. 

But  the  way  in  which  cause  of  war  may  arise  will  be,  if  at 
all,  by  the  conflict  of  rights  —  the  existence  of  rights  on  the 
part  of  foreign  powers  against  American  republics,  and  the 
result  of  the  enforcement  of  those  rights  of  foreign  powers 
against  the  American  republics  coming  in  conflict  with  this 
doctrine  which  we  assert  for  our  own  safety  and  preservation. 
All  sovereignty  in  this  world  is  held  upon  the  condition  of 
performing  the  duties  of  sovereignty.  In  the  parliament  of 
man  the  rights  of  the  weakest  state  are  recognized;  the  right 
of  the  sovereign  ruler  or  the  sovereign  people  to  be  protected 
against  aggression  is  recognized  and  protected  by  the  com- 
mon influence  of  mankind.  But  that  right  is  held  upon 
condition  that  the  sovereign  ruler  or  the  sovereign  people 
performs  the  duties  of  sovereignty;  that  the  citizens  of  other 
powers  are  protected  within  the  territory;  that  the  rules  of 
international  law  are  observed;  that  national  obligations  are 
faithfully  kept.  And  while  we  assert  that  we  are  entitled  to 
say  that  no  foreign  power  shall  undertake  to  control  an  Amer- 
ican republic,  that  no  foreign  power  shall  take  possession  with 
or  without  the  will  of  an  American  people  of  their  territory, 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  271 

that  assertion  is  justified  only  upon  the  same  condition.  We 
do  not  undertake  to  say  that  the  republics  of  Central  and 
South  America  are  to  be  relieved  from  their  international 
obligations.  We  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  the  Powers  of 
Europe  shall  not  enforce  their  rights  against  these  members 
of  the  sisterhood  of  nations.  It  is  only  when  the  enforcement 
of  those  rights  comes  to  the  point  of  taking  possession  of  the 
territory  of  any  American  people  that  we  say  that  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  United  States;  and 
we  cannot  say  it  with  justice  unless  we  also  say  that  the 
American  republics  are  themselves  to  be  just. 

It  is  always  possible  that  redress  of  injury,  that  punish- 
ment for  wrong,  may  lead  to  the  occupation  of  territory. 
Egypt  today  is  held  practically  under  the  sway  of  England, 
because  Egypt  was  unable  to  pay  her  debts.  Greece  today  is 
under  the  control  of  a  government  set  up  by  the  Powers, 
taken  away  from  the  control  of  her  old  sovereign,  Turkey, 
because  Turkey  was  unable  or  unwilling  to  compel  Greece 
to  perform  her  international  duties.  And  if  we  are  to  main- 
tain this  doctrine,  which  is  vital  to  our  national  life  and 
safety,  at  the  same  time  when  we  say  to  the  other  Powers 
of  the  world,  "  You  shall  not  push  your  remedies  for  wrong 
against  these  republics  to  the  point  of  occupying  their  ter- 
ritory ",  we  are  bound  to  say  that  whenever  the  wrong  can- 
not be  otherwise  redressed  we  ourselves  will  see  that  it  is 
redressed. 

That  is  the  doctrine  of  the  quotation  from  the  President's 
letter  which  you  find  upon  our  program  this  evening  under- 
neath the  toast  to  which  I  speak.  That  statement  of  the 
American  position  made  by  the  American  President  was  not 
an  advance,  an  aggression,  a  statement  of  a  purpose  beyond 
the  purposes  declared  before  by  American  statesmen.  It 
was  a  definition  and  limitation  of  American  purposes  with 
reference  to  what  had  already  been  said  by  American  states- 


272  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

men.  The  most  extreme  declaration  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
which  I  know  of  was  made  by  Mr.  Olney  in  his  letter  at  the 
time  of  the  Venezuela  boundary  question  in  1895,  when  he 
said:  "  Today  the  United  States  is  practically  sovereign  on 
this  continent,  and  its  fiat  is  law  upon  the  subject  to  which 
it  confines  its  interposition."  The  tremendous  scope  and 
meaning  of  those  words  for  the  weak  little  republics  of 
Central  and  South  America  cannot  be  exaggerated.  "  The 
United  States  is  sovereign  today  upon  this  continent,  and  its 
fiat  is  law!  " 

The  declaration  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in 
the  letter  to  the  Cuban  dinner  which  is  quoted  upon  this 
program,  and  in  his  last  message,  is  a  disclaimer  of  all  that 
we  ought  not  to  arrogate  to  ourselves  in  that  broad  and 
somewhat  rhetorical  statement  of  Mr.  Olney.  It  is  a  declara- 
tion that  we  arrogate  to  ourselves,  not  sovereignty  over  the 
American  continent,  but  only  the  right  to  protect;  that  what 
we  will  not  permit  the  great  Power  of  Europe  to  do  on  this 
continent  we  will  not  permit  any  American  republic  to  make 
it  necessary  for  the  great  Powers  of  Europe  to  do.  The 
obligation  of  civilization  to  see  that  right  and  justice  are  done 
by  these  republics  which  we  protect  with  our  strong  arm, 
against  oppression  by  other  powers  of  the  world  is  an  obliga- 
tion that  always  must  go  with  the  right  that  we  assert.  And 
when  in  days  to  come  vital  questions  which  may  make  for 
peace  or  for  war  arise  let  us  be  sure  that  the  American  people 
who  will  determine  on  peace  or  war  understand,  have  con- 
sidered, have  discussed,  not  merely  the  right,  but  the  duty 
that  goes  with  the  right.  Above  all  things  let  us  be  just. 
Let  us  do  equity  when  we  come  into  the  great  court  of  civili- 
zation. Let  us  see  that  we  ourselves  and  those  whom  we 
protect  for  our  safety  are  just,  and  our  cause  will  be  just. 
Then  if  injustice  be  done  to  them  or  to  us  we  will  remember 
those  noble  words  of  President  Cleveland,  when,  in  writing 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  273 

upon  the  same  Venezuelan  question,  he  said:  "  There  is  no 
calamity  which  a  great  nation  can  invite  which  equals  that 
which  follows  a  supine  submission  to  wrong  and  injustice  and 
the  consequent  loss  of  national  respect  and  honor,  beneath 
which  are  shielded  and  defended  a  people's  safety  and  great- 
ness." Then  in  the  spirit  of  our  Pilgrim  fathers,  the  corner 
stone  of  whose  religion  was  justice,  we  will  maintain  our 
right  and  the  right  of  all  who  depend  upon  us  for  protection; 
maintain  it  in  the  name  of  justice  and  liberty;  maintain  it 
with  a  strong  arm,  if  need  be,  and  maintain  it  ever. 


THE  CAUSES  OF  WAR 

ADDRESS  AT  A  DINNER  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  PEACE  SOCIETY  IN 

RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SERVICES  OF  THE  SECRETARY 

OF  STATE  TO  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE 

FEBRUARY  26,  1909 

IT  seems  to  me  that  the  Peace  Society  has  gathered  here  all 
the  evidences,  all  the  proofs,  has  made  the  demonstration, 
of  what  it  is  worth  to  preserve  peace;  the  faces  of  the  dear 
old  friends  of  a  life-time,  the  children  of  many  a  friend  who 
has  passed  away  during  my  absence  from  New  York,  all  this 
that  I  see  about  me,  is  what  makes  it  worth  while  that  peace 
shall  be  preserved  —  the  charm  and  grace  of  life,  the  joy  of 
living,  the  virtues,  the  beauty,  the  nobility,  preserved, 
defended,  and  continued  by  this  modern  civilization  which 
substitutes  peace  for  war.  We  have  passed  in  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  society  far  from  those  old  days  when  men 
fought  for  the  mere  joy  of  fighting.  Except  here  and  there 
an  individual  and  here  and  there  a  half -savage  community, 
no  one  now  makes  war  for  the  love  of  war. 

So  long  as  selfishness  and  greed  and  the  willingness  and  the 
brutality  to  do  injustice  continue  in  this  world,  we  must 
have  the  policeman;  and  the  international  policeman  whose 
presence  makes  the  use  of  his  club  unnecessary,  is  the  army 
and  the  navy. 

But  the  work  of  peace-loving  men  and  women,  the  work  of 
all  those  who  love  home,  who  desire  that  mankind  shall  be 
enlarged  in  intelligence  and  in  moral  vision,  of  all  those  who 
desire  to  see  science  and  art  and  the  graces  of  life  and  sweet 
charity  and  the  love  of  mankind  for  one  another  continue 
and  grow  among  men,  their  work  is  to  aid,  not  by  great 

275 


276  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

demonstration,  but  by  that  quiet,  that  resistless  influence, 
which  among  great  bodies  of  men  makes  up  the  tendency  of 
mankind,  and  in  the  long  process  of  the  years  moves  men 
from  savagery  and  brutality  to  peace  and  brotherhood.  It 
rests  with  the  army  and  the  navy  to  make  aggression  and 
injustice  unprofitable  and  unattractive.  It  rests  with  you 
and  with  me  to  exercise  the  powers  that  God  has  already 
placed  in  our  hands.  It  rests  with  every  man  in  the  exercise 
of  his  duties,  political  and  social,  to  move  the  conceptions  of 
an  honorable  life  away  from  the  old  ideas  of  savagery  towards 
the  new  ideas  of  civilization,  of  humanity,  that  in  their  prog- 
ress gradually  approach  the  supreme  idea  of  Christianity. 

Peace  can  never  be  except  as  it  is  founded  upon  justice. 
And  it  rests  with  us  in  our  own  country  to  see  to  it  that  the 
idea  of  justice  prevails,  and  prevails  against  the  declamation 
of  the  demagogue,  against  the  interested  exhortation  of  the 
politician,  against  the  hot  temper  of  the  thoughtless  and  of 
the  inconsiderate.  If  we  would  have  peace,  it  is  not  enough 
to  cry  "  Peace!  Peace!  "  It  is  essential  that  we  should  pro- 
mote and  insist  upon  the  willingness  of  our  country  to  do 
justice  to  all  countries  of  the  earth.  In  the  exercise  of  those 
duties  in  which  the  ambassadors  of  Great  Britain,  of  Brazil, 
and  of  Japan  have  played  so  great  a  part  with  us  in  the  last 
few  years  in  Washington,  the  great  obstacles  to  the  doing  of 
things  which  make  for  peace  have  been  not  the  wish  of  the 
diplomatist,  not  the  policy  of  the  Government,  but  the  incon- 
siderate and  thoughtless  unwillingness  of  the  great  body 
of  the  people  of  the  respective  countries  to  stand  behind  the 
man  who  was  willing  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  justice,  to 
make  fair  concessions. 

There  is  a  peculiar  situation  created  when  a  diplomatic 
question  arises  between  two  countries.  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
diplomatic  representative  to  argue  each  the  cause  of  his  own 
country;  he  cannot  turn  his  back  upon  an  opponent  in  that 


THE  CAUSES  OF  WAR  277 

friendly  contest  and  state  to  his  countrymen  the  weakness  of 
his  own  position  and  the  strength  of  the  other  side's  position, 
and  it  is  one  of  the  great  difficulties  of  peace-making  and 
peace-keeping  that  the  orators,  the  politicians,  the  stump 
speakers,  aye,  often  the  clergymen  of  each  country,  press 
and  insist  upon  the  extreme  view  of  their  own  country,  and 
impress  upon  the  minds  of  the  great  masses  of  people  who 
have  not  studied  the  question,  the  idea  that  all  right  is  upon 
one  side  and  all  wrong  upon  the  other  side. 

If  you  would  help  to  make  and  keep  peace,  stand  behind 
the  men  who  are  in  the  responsible  positions  of  government, 
ready  to  recognize  the  fact  that  there  is  some  right  on  the 
other  side. 

War  comes  today  as  the  result  of  one  of  three  causes; 
either  actual  or  threatened  wrong  by  one  country  to  another; 
or  suspicion  by  one  country  that  another  intends  to  do  it 
wrong,  and  upon  that  suspicion,  instinct  leads  the  country 
that  suspects  the  attack,  to  attack  first;  or,  from  bitterness 
of  feeling,  dependent  in  no  degree  whatever  upon  substantial 
questions  of  difference;  and  that  bitterness  of  feeling  leads  to 
suspicion,  and  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  those  who  suspect 
and  who  entertain  the  bitter  feeling,  is  justification  for  war. 
It  is  their  justification  to  themselves.  The  least  of  these  three 
causes  of  war  is  actual  injustice.  There  are  today  acts  of 
injustice  being  perpetrated  by  one  country  upon  another, 
there  are  several  situations  in  the  world  today,  where  gross 
injustice  is  being  done.  I  will  not  mention  them,  because  it 
would  do  more  harm  than  it  would  good,  but  they  are  few  in 
number.  By  far  the  greatest  cause  of  war  is  that  suspicion  of 
injustice,  threatened  and  intended,  which  comes  from  exas- 
perated feeling.  Now  feeling,  the  feeling  which  makes  one 
nation  willing  to  go  to  war  with  another,  makes  real  causes  of 
difference  of  no  consequence.  If  the  people  of  two  countries 
want  to  fight,  they  will  find  an  excuse  —  a  pretext  —  find 


278  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

what  seems  to  them  sufficient  cause,  in  anything.  Questions 
which  can  be  disposed  of  without  the  slightest  difficulty  be- 
tween countries  really  friendly,  are  insoluble  between  coun- 
tries really  unfriendly.  And  the  feeling  between  the  peoples 
of  different  countries  is  the  product  of  the  acts  and  the  words 
of  the  peoples  of  the  countries  themselves,  not  of  their 
governments.  Insult,  contemptuous  treatment,  bad  man- 
ners, arrogant  and  provincial  assertion  of  superiority  are  the 
chief  causes  of  war  today. 

And  in  this  country  of  ours,  we  are  not  free  from  being 
guilty  of  all  those  great  causes  of  war.  The  gentlemen  who 
introduced  into  the  legislatures  of  California,  Montana,  and 
Nevada,  the  legislation  regarding  the  treatment  of  the 
Japanese  in  those  states,  doubtless  had  no  conception  of 
the  fact  that  they  were  offering  to  that  great  nation  of  gentle- 
men, of  soldiers,  of  scholars  and  scientists,  of  statesmen,  a 
nation  worthy  of  challenging  and  receiving  the  respect,  the 
honor  and  the  homage  of  mankind,  an  insult  that  would 
bring  on  private  war  in  any  private  relation  in  our  own 
country.  Thank  Heaven,  the  wiser  heads  and  the  sounder 
hearts,  instructed  and  enlightened  upon  the  true  nature  of 
the  proceedings,  prevailed,  and  overcame  the  inconsiderate 
and  thoughtless. 

There  are  no  two  men  in  this  room  tonight  who  cannot 
bring  on  private  war  between  themselves  by  an  insult  with- 
out any  cause  or  reason,  and  it  is  so  with  the  nations,  for 
national  pride,  national  sensitiveness,  sense  of  national  honor, 
are  more  keenly  alive  to  insult  than  can  be  the  case  with  any 
individual.  But  a  few  days  ago,  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  charged  upon  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
little  republic  of  Panama,  a  fraudulent  conspiracy  with 
regard  to  a  contract  under  negotiation  by  the  government  of 
that  country  regarding  the  forests  of  Panama.  All  Panama 
was  instantly  alive  with  just  indignation.    This  insult  was 


THE  CAUSES  OF  WAR  279 

felt  all  the  more  keenly  because  we,  with  our  ninety  millions 
and  our  great  navy  and  army,  presented  an  overwhelming 
and  irresistible  force  toward  a  little  republic  whose  sover- 
eignty we  are  bound,  trebly  bound,  in  honor  to  maintain  and 
respect. 

These  are  the  things  that  make  for  war  and  if  you  would 
make  for  peace,  you  will  frown  upon  them,  condemn  them, 
ostracize  and  punish  by  all  social  penalties,  the  men  who  are 
guilty  of  them,  until  it  is  understood  and  felt  that  an  insult  to 
a  friendly  foreign  power  is  a  disgrace  to  the  insulter,  upon  a 
level  with  the  crimes  that  we  denounce  and  for  which  the  law 
inflicts  disgraceful  punishment. 

Two-thirds  of  the  suspicion,  the  dislike,  the  distrust  with 
which  our  country  was  regarded  by  the  people  of  South 
America,  was  the  result  of  the  arrogant  and  contemptuous 
bearing  of  Americans,  of  people  of  the  United  States,  towards 
those  gentle,  polite,  sensitive,  imaginative,  delightful  people. 
Allusion  has  been  made  to  my  visit  there,  to  the  generous, 
magnanimous  hospitality  that  they  have  inherited  from  their 
ancestors  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  that  opened  wide  the 
gateways  of  their  land  and  their  hearts  to  a  message  of  cour- 
tesy and  kindly  consideration.  No  questions  existed  before 
to  be  settled,  no  serious  questions  have  been  settled,  but  the 
difference  between  the  feeling,  the  attitude,  of  the  people  of 
Latin  America  and  our  republic  today  from  what  it  was 
four  years  ago,  is  the  result  of  the  conspicuous  substitution  of 
the  treatment  that  one  gentleman  owes  to  another,  for  the 
treatment  that  one  blackguard  pays  to  another. 

Now  this  is  a  subject  for  you  to  deal  with.  The  govern- 
ment cannot  reach  it.  Laws  cannot  control  it;  public 
opinion,  public  sentiment  must  deal  with  it,  and  when  public 
opinion  has  risen  to  such  height  all  over  the  world,  that  the 
peoples  of  every  country  treat  the  peoples  of  every  other 
country  with  the  human  kindness  that  binds  home  com- 


280  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

munities  together,  you  will  see  an  end  of  war  —  and  not 
until  then. 

But  it  becomes  less  and  less  necessary  to  preach  peace. 
We  have  not  reached  ideal  perfection  yet,  far  from  it;  but  the 
way  to  judge  of  conditions  in  this  world  is  not  by  comparing 
them  with  the  standard  of  ideal  perfection;  it  is  by  compar- 
ing the  conditions  today  with  the  conditions  of  the  past  and 
noting,  not  what  we  can  do  today.  If  we  note  that  alone,  we 
must  be  discouraged;  if  we  note  that  alone,  we  must  be  con- 
vinced of  the  desperate  selfishness,  the  injustice,  the  cruelty 
of  mankind.  But  if  we  compare  the  conditions  of  today  with 
the  conditions  of  yesterday  and  the  last  decade  and  the  last 
generation,  and  the  last  century  and  centuries  before,  no  one 
can  fail  to  see  that  in  all  those  qualities  of  the  human  heart 
which  make  the  difference  between  cruel  and  brutal  war,  and 
kindly  peace,  the  civilized  world  is  steadily  and  surely 
advancing  day  by  day.  No  one  can  fail  to  see  that  the  con- 
tinuous and  unswerving  tendency  of  human  development  is 
towards  peace  and  the  love  of  mankind. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  DEMOCRACY  ON 
INTERNATIONAL  LAW 

PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  AT  THE  ELEVENTH  ANNUAL  MEETING 

OF  THE  AMERICAN  SOCIETY  OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  APRIL  26,  1917 

IN  trying  to  estimate  the  future  possibilities  of  international 
law,  and  to  form  any  useful  opinion  as  to  the  methods  by 
which  the  law  can  be  made  more  binding  upon  international 
conduct,  serious  difficulties  are  presented  in  the  unknown 
quantities  introduced  by  the  great  war,  which  is  steadily 
drawing  into  its  circle  the  entire  civilized  world.  Hitherto, 
we  have  been  unable  to  form  any  real  judgment  as  to  which 
of  the  two  warring  groups  of  nations  will  succeed  in  the  end. 
Our  expectations  and  beliefs  upon  that  question  have  been 
the  products  of  our  sympathies  and  our  hopes,  and  of  an 
optimism  for  which  it  is  now  happily  more  easy  to  find  just 
grounds  than  ever  before. 

Nor  have  we  been  able  to  measure  the  effects  of  the  war 
upon  national  character,  and  the  probable  results  in  national 
modes  of  thought  and  conduct.  A  just  estimate  of  such 
forces  is  not  easy.  The  modern  era  of  nationalities  has  been 
marked  by  three  great  convulsions  which  turned  the  minds  of 
all  civilized  men  towards  peace,  and  led  them  to  seek  means 
to  make  peace  secure. 

The  Thirty  Years'  War  produced  the  Peace  of  Westphalia 
and  the  system  of  independent  nationalities  in  Europe,  and  it 
produced  Grotius  and  the  science  of  international  law;  and 
practically  every  power  in  Europe  except  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire was  a  party  to  the  agreement  to  maintain  the  system 

281 


282  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

thus  established.  Yet,  the  century  which  followed  exhibited 
the  most  cynical  and  universal  disregard  for  the  law,  and 
for  the  treaty,  and  for  all  treaties. 

The  Napoleonic  wars  produced  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  and 
the  Holy  Alliance.  That  sincere  but  misguided  effort  sought 
to  fix  the  limits  and  regulate  the  conduct  of  the  nations  of 
Europe  in  accordance  with  the  principles  which  the  treaty- 
making  powers  then  believed  to  be  in  keeping  with  right  and 
justice,  and  to  be  effective  for  the  permanent  peaceful  organ- 
ization of  the  community  of  nations,  and  it  sought  to  main- 
tain the  status  quo  by  the  establishment  of  a  league  to 
enforce  peace  in  accordance  with  their  conception.  Yet, 
the  arrangements  were  conceived  by  minds  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  the  past,  and  became  of  no  effect  when  tested 
by  the  changes  wrought  by  the  spirit  of  the  future.  The  old 
bottles  were  filled  with  new  wine  and  could  not  contain  it; 
so  the  scheme  came  to  naught. 

Both  of  these  efforts  to  secure  permanent  peace  under  the 
rule  of  law  failed  because  the  unappreciated  forces  working 
for  change  and  growth  became  stronger  than  the  gradually 
decreasing  restraint  of  agreements  to  maintain  a  fixed  and 
immutable  relation  of  territory  and  opportunities  among  the 
nations.  It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  a  similar  result  must 
follow  any  attempt  to  base  a  system  of  international  law 
upon  definite  and  rigid  limitations  devised  to  meet  the 
expediency  of  the  moment.  The  law  of  life  is  growth,  and  no 
generation  can  prevent  the  growth  of  future  generations  by 
fixing  in  accordance  with  its  ideas  the  specific  conditions 
under  which  they  are  to  live.  As  we  look  back,  we  see  a  mul- 
titude of  ancient  wrongs  protected  by  the  law  of  nations, 
naturally  enough,  because  the  law  has  been  made  by  powers 
in  possession.  We  have  a  vague  impression  that  interna- 
tional wrongs  are  cured  by  time.  That  is  not  always  so. 
There  is  no  international  statute  of  limitations.    Time  alone 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW      283 

cures  no  wrong.  The  people  to  whom  wrong  is  done  may  be 
destroyed,  as  the  Turks  are  destroying  the  Armenians;  or  the 
wronged  people  may  be  reconciled  to  the  new  conditions  like 
the  Saxons  in  England;  but,  for  example,  the  unforgiven 
wrong  of  the  Turk  in  Europe,  and  the  unforgiven  wrong  of 
the  partition  of  Poland,  are  always  forces  working  against  the 
law  that  protects  them.  The  maintenance  or  the  redress  of 
such  wrongs  is  merely  a  question  of  relative  power.  The  rise 
in  power  of  Christian  Europe,  and  the  decadence  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  make  inevitable  the  complete  refluence  of 
the  tide  which  once  reached  the  walls  of  Vienna,  and  even  to 
the  valley  of  the  Loire.  No  human  laws  or  conventions  could 
bind  the  forces  which  work  through  centuries  to  achieve  such 
results.  The  futility  of  efforts  to  control  such  movements  of 
mankind  by  the  short-sighted  policies  of  the  passing  day  can- 
not be  better  illustrated  than  by  the  misplaced  energy  and 
sacrifice  of  the  Crimean  War  and  the  fatuous  ingenuity  of  the 
Congress  of  Berlin  which  sought  to  bolster  up  and  preserve 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Turk. 

As  we  consider  how  it  may  be  possible  to  reestablish  the 
law  of  nations  upon  a  durable  basis,  we  must  realize  that  past 
experience  indicates  that  no  system  of  law  which  depends 
upon  the  physical  partition  of  the  earth  dictated  by  the 
expediency  of  the  time,  no  law  which  must  be  broken  in  order 
that  living  wrongs  shall  be  redressed,  or  in  order  that  the 
new  ideas  of  the  future  may  find  room  for  growth,  can  be 
permanent. 

We  should  therefore  inquire  whether  the  political  and 
social  conditions  to  which  we  may  reasonably  look  forward 
after  the  war,  the  forces  that  are  to  move  mankind,  the  trend 
of  development,  will  be  such  as  to  enable  us  in  our  day  to 
escape  the  errors  of  our  predecessors,  and  to  establish  upon 
some  basis  of  principle  a  system  of  international  law  which 
can  be  maintained  and  enforced. 


284  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

The  greatest  change  in  the  conditions  of  national  life 
during  the  past  century  has  been  in  the  advance  and  spread 
of  democratic  government,  and  the  correlative  decrease  in  the 
extent  and  power  of  autocratic  and  dynastic  governments. 
It  is  impossible  to  regard  the  advance  of  democracy  as  being 
merely  local  or  temporary.  It  has  been  the  result  of  long- 
continued  and  persistent  progress  varying  in  different  coun- 
tries according  to  the  character  of  the  people,  and  the  nature 
of  the  obstacles  to  be  overcome,  but,  in  its  nature,  essentially 
the  same  in  all  countries. 

England  in  her  steady-going  undemonstrative  way  has 
moved  along  from  government  by  a  king  claiming  divine 
right  to  a  Commons  representing  popular  right  through  the 
revolution  of  1688,  which  established  the  nation's  right  to 
choose  its  king,  through  that  civil  war  over  the  rights  of 
British  subjects  known  as  the  American  Revolution,  through 
chartism  and  Catholic  emancipation,  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1832,  the  franchise  extension  of  1867,  the  abandonment  of 
the  king's  veto  power,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Com- 
mons' right  to  pass  bills  over  the  rejection  of  the  House  of 
Lords. 

France  in  her  own  different  way  with  much  action  and 
reaction  travelled  towards  the  same  goal  through  the  States 
General  and  the  Constituent  Assembly,  through  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  and  her  amazing  defense  of  the  First  Republic  against 
all  Europe,  through  the  heroic  surgery  of  Napoleon's  career, 
the  Bourbon  restoration,  the  assertion  of  her  right  to  choose 
her  own  king  in  1830,  and  the  assertion  of  her  right  to  dis- 
pense with  a  king  in  1848,  the  plebiscite  and  the  Second 
Empire,  the  Commune  and  the  Third  Republic,  which  has 
grown  in  stability  and  capacity  for  popular  government  until 
the  steadiness  and  self-control  and  noble  devotion  of  the 
French  people  under  suffering  and  sacrifice  have  come  to  be 
one  of  the  amazing  revelations  of  these  terrible  years. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW     285 

Italy  struggling  out  of  the  control  of  a  multitude  of  petty 
tyrants  sustained  by  foreign  influence,  established  her  newly- 
won  unity  and  independence  upon  the  basis  of  representative 
parliamentary  government. 

Spain  has  regained  and  strengthened  the  constitution  of 
which  Ferdinand  VTI  and  the  Holy  Alliance  deprived  her. 

Throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  world  constitutions 
have  become  the  order  of  the  day.  Switzerland,  Belgium, 
Holland,  Portugal,  all  Scandinavia,  all  Latin  America,  have 
established  their  governments  upon  constitutional  bases. 

Japan,  emerging  from  her  military  feudalism,  makes  her 
entry  into  the  community  of  civilized  nations  under  a  con- 
stitutional government.  China,  throwing  off  the  domination 
of  the  Manchu,  is  striving  to  accustom  her  long-suffering  and 
submissive  millions  to  the  idea  of  constitutional  right. 

The  great  self-governing  British  Dominions  bound  to  the 
mother-country  only  by  ties  of  tradition  and  sentiment  have 
shown  that  free  democracies  can  respond  to  moral  forces  with 
a  splendid  power  of  loyalty  that  no  coercion  could  inspire. 
And  now,  Russia,  extirpating  the  government  which  has 
been  for  modern  times  the  typical  illustration  of  autocracy, 
is  engaged  in  establishing  the  new  self-control  of  that  vast 
empire  upon  the  basis  of  universal  suffrage  and  republican 
institutions. 

The  political  conception  of  control  from  above  by  mon- 
archs  exercising  divine  right  is  not  merely  disputed  by  philo- 
sophers and  reformers;  it  has  faded  and  grown  dim  in  the 
minds  of  the  millions  of  men  in  the  civilized  nations,  and  in 
its  place  has  spread  throughout  the  world  the  political  con- 
ception of  constitutional  government  exercising  control  by 
authority  of  the  peoples  who  are  governed. 

The  persistence  and  extent  of  this  change  in  the  political 
and  social  conditions  of  national  life  forbid  the  idea  that  it  is 
the  child  of  individual  minds  or  local  provocations  or  tern- 


286  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

porary  causes,  and  distinguish  it  as  one  of  those  great  and 
fundamental  movements  of  the  human  mind  which  no  power 
can  control,  and  which  run  their  course  inevitably  to  the  end 
in  an  unknown  future.  The  existence  and  assured  continu- 
ance of  this  process  of  development  of  democracy  is  the  great 
fact  forecasting  the  future  conditions  under  which  the  effort 
to  reinstate  the  law  of  nations  is  to  be  made. 

What  is  to  be  the  effect  of  this  change  in  conditions  upon 
the  possibility  of  making  international  law  relatively  per- 
manent ?  In  considering  this  question,  some  facts  can  be 
clearly  perceived. 

The  substitution  of  a  democratic  for  an  autocratic  regime 
removes  the  chief  force  which  in  the  past  has  led  nations  to 
break  over  and  destroy  the  limitations  of  law;  that  is,  the 
prosecution  of  dynastic  policies.  Such  policies  in  general 
have  in  view  the  increase  of  territory,  of  dominion,  of  power, 
for  the  ruler  and  the  military  class  or  aristocracy  which  sur- 
rounds the  ruler  and  supports  his  throne.  The  benefit  of  the 
people  who  are  ruled  is  only  incidentally  —  if  at  all  — 
involved.  If  we  turn  back  to  the  causes  which  destroyed  the 
peace  of  the  world  under  the  dispositions  made  by  the  Treaty 
of  Westphalia,  the  mind  naturally  rests  on  the  War  of  the 
Spanish  Succession  which  drenched  Europe  in  blood  through 
the  first  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  ended  in  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht  only  when  Louis  XIV  was  reduced  to 
exhaustion.  What  was  that  about  ?  Nothing  more  or  less 
than  the  question  what  royal  house  should  have  its  power 
increased  by  a  marriage  that  would  ultimately  enable  it  to 
control  the  territory  and  wield  the  power  of  Spain  for  its  own 
aggrandizement.  The  interests  of  the  people  of  Spain  or  the 
people  of  France  or  of  any  other  country  furnished  no  part  of 
the  motive  power.  What  caused  the  War  of  the  Austrian 
Succession  a  generation  later,  when  Frederick  (called  "  The 
Great  ")  marched  his  army  into  Silesia  to  wrest  that  province 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW     287 

from  the  feeble  hands  of  young  Maria  Theresa  in  flagrant 
violation  of  his  solemn  promise  to  protect  her  title  under  the 
covenants  of  the  pragmatic  sanction,  and  when  the  nations  of 
Europe  gathered  like  buzzards  about  one  dying,  eager  to 
share  in  the  dismemberment  of  the  possessions  of  the  House 
of  Austria  ?  It  was  the  desire  of  royal  princes  to  increase 
their  power  and  glory  regardless  of  law  and  justice,  and  the 
welfare  of  peoples,  and,  incidentally,  a  desire  by  some  states 
to  prevent  that  increase,  lest  the  same  rule  of  spoliation 
might  more  readily  be  applied  to  them. 

Underlying  the  whole  age-long  struggle  to  maintain  the 
balance  of  power  in  Europe  has  been  the  assumption  that 
increased  power  would  be  used  for  aggression  and  to  secure 
further  increase  of  power  by  the  conquest  of  territory  and  the 
subjection  of  its  inhabitants;  and  the  common  experience  of 
mankind  under  the  autocratic  system  of  government  by 
divine  right  has  justified  the  assumption.  It  was  a  perfect 
understanding  of  this  characteristic  of  autocratic  govern- 
ment that  inspired  the  words  of  President  Monroe's  famous 
declaration:  "  We  should  consider  any  attempt  on  their 
part  (the  European  powers)  to  extend  their  system  to  any 
portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our  peace  and 
safety." 

Against  the  deep  and  settled  purpose  of  a  ruling  family  or  a 
ruling  aristocratic  class  to  enlarge  its  power,  continuing  from 
generation  to  generation,  usually  concealed  until  the  favor- 
able moment  for  action  comes,  always  justified  or  excused 
by  specious  pretexts,  the  advocates  of  peace,  or  justice,  or 
humanity,  or  law,  are  helpless.  All  other  causes  of  war  can  be 
Teached.  International  misunderstandings  can  be  explained 
away.  Dislikes  and  suspicions  can  be  dissipated  by  inter- 
course, and  better  knowledge,  and  courtesy,  and  kindness. 
Considerate  justice  can  prevent  real  causes  of  war.  Rules  of 
action  to  prevent  controversy  may  be  agreed  upon  by  diplo- 


288  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

macy  and  conferences  and  congresses.  Honest  differences  as 
to  national  rights  and  duties  may  be  settled  by  arbitration, 
or  judicial  decision;  but  against  a  deep  and  persistent  pur- 
pose by  the  rulers  of  a  great  nation  to  take  away  the  territory 
of  others,  or  to  reduce  others  to  subjection  for  their  own 
aggrandizement,  all  these  expedients  are  of  no  avail.  The 
Congresses  of  Westphalia,  of  Vienna,  of  Berlin,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  others  less  conspicuous,  have  sought  to  curb  the  evil 
through  setting  limits  upon  power  by  treaty.  They  have  all 
failed.  The  Peace  Conferences  at  The  Hague  have  sought  to 
diminish  the  evil  by  universal  agreement  upon  rules  of 
action.  The  rules  and  the  treaties  have  become  "scraps 
of  paper  ". 

The  progress  of  democracy,  however,  is  dealing  with  the 
problem  by  destroying  the  type  of  government  which  has 
shown  itself  incapable  of  maintaining  respect  for  law  and 
justice  and  resisting  the  temptation  of  ambition;  and  by 
substituting  a  new  form  of  government,  which  in  its  nature  is 
incapable  of  proceeding  by  the  same  methods,  and  neces- 
sarily responds  to  different  motives  and  pursues  different 
objects  from  the  old  autocratic  offenders.  Only  when  that 
task  has  been  substantially  accomplished  will  the  advocates 
of  law  among  nations  be  free  from  the  inheritance  of  former 
failure.  There  will  then  be  a  new  field  open  for  a  new  trial, 
doubtless  full  of  difficulties  of  its  own,  but  of  fair  hope  and 
possibilities  of  success. 

Self-governing  democracies  are  indeed  liable  to  commit 
great  wrongs.  The  peoples  who  govern  themselves  fre- 
quently misunderstand  their  international  rights,  and  ignore 
their  international  duties.  They  are  often  swayed  by  pre- 
judice, and  blinded  by  passion.  They  are  swift  to  decide  in 
their  own  favor  the  most  difficult  questions  upon  which  they 
are  totally  ignorant.  They  are  apt  to  applaud  the  jingo  poli- 
tician who  courts  popularity  by  public  insult  to  a  friendly 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW      289 

people,  and  to  condemn  the  statesman  who  modifies  extreme 
demands  through  the  concessions  required  by  just  considera- 
tion for  the  rights  of  others.  All  these  faults,  however,  are 
open  and  known  to  the  whole  world.  The  opinions  and 
motives  from  which  they  proceed,  the  real  causes  of  error,  can 
be  reached  by  reason,  by  appeal  to  better  instincts,  by  public 
discussion,  by  the  ascertainment  and  dissemination  of  the 
true  facts. 

There  are  some  necessary  features  of  democratic  self- 
government  which  tend  towards  the  progressive  reduction  of 
tendencies  to  international  wrong-doing.  One  is  that  democ- 
racies are  absolutely  dependent  for  their  existence  upon  the 
preservation  of  law.  Autocracies  can  give  commands  and 
enforce  them.  Rules  of  action  are  a  convenience,  not  a  neces- 
sity for  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  only  atmosphere  in 
which  a  democracy  can  live  between  the  danger  of  autocracy 
on  one  side  and  the  danger  of  anarchy  on  the  other  is  the 
atmosphere  of  law.  Respect  for  law  is  the  essential  condition 
of  its  existence;  and,  as  in  a  democracy  the  law  is  an  expres- 
sion of  the  people's  own  will,  self-respect,  and  personal  pride, 
and  patriotism  demand  its  observance.  An  essential  dis- 
tinction between  democracy  and  autocracy  is  that  whije 
the  government  of  an  autocracy  is  superior  to  the  law,  the 
government  of  a  democracy  is  subject  to  the  law.  The  con- 
ception of  an  international  law  binding  upon  the  governments 
of  the  world  is  therefore  natural  to  the  people  of  a  democracy, 
and  any  violation  of  that  law  which  they  themselves  have 
joined  in  prescribing  is  received  with  disapproval,  if  not  with 
resentment.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  attitude  of  the 
people  of  the  separate  states  of  the  American  Union  towards 
the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  pass- 
ing upon  the  exercise  of  power  by  state  governments.  Physi- 
cal force  has  never  been  used  to  compel  conformity  to  those 
decisions.    Yet,  the  democratic  people  of  the  United  States 


290  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

have  answered  Jefferson's  contemptuous  remark  "  John 
Marshall  has  made  his  decision;  now  let  him  enforce  it." 
The  answer  is  that  it  is  the  will  of  self -governed  democracy 
to  obey  the  law,  which  it  has  itself  established,  and  the  deci- 
sions of  the  great  tribunal  which  declares  the  law  controlling 
state  action  will  be  accepted  and  observed  by  common 
consent  and  enforced  by  the  power  of  public  opinion. 

Another  necessary  feature  of  democratic  government  is 
that  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  popular  self-government  is  a 
continual  training  of  all  citizens  in  the  very  qualities  which 
are  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  law  between  nations. 
Democratic  government  cannot  be  carried  on  except  by  a 
people  who  acquire  the  habit  of  seeking  true  information 
about  facts,  of  discussing  questions  of  right  and  wrong,  of 
interest,  and  of  possible  consequences,  who  have  kindly  con- 
sideration for  opposing  opinions,  and  a  tolerant  attitude 
towards  those  who  differ.  The  longer  a  democracy  preserves 
itself  through  the  exercise  of  these  qualities,  the  better 
adapted  it  is  to  apply  the  same  methods  in  the  conduct  of  its 
international  business,  and  the  result  is  a  continually  increas- 
ing certainty  that  international  law  will  be  observed  in  a 
community  of  democratic  nations. 

The  most  important  difference,  however,  between  the  two 
forms  of  government,  is  that  democracies  are  incapable  of 
holding  or  executing  those  sinister  policies  of  ambition  which 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  argument  and  the  control  of  law.  A 
democracy  cannot  hold  such  policies,  because  the  open  and 
public  avowal  and  discussion  which  must  precede  their 
adoption  by  a  democracy  is  destructive  of  them;  and  it  can- 
not execute  such  policies  because  it  uniformly  lacks  the  kind 
of  disciplined  efficiency  necessary  to  diplomatic  and  military 
affirmatives.  The  settled  and  continuous  policies  of  a  democ- 
racy are  defensive.  Nearly  ninety  years  ago  De  Tocqueville 
in  his  survey  On  Democraq/  in  America  recorded  what  he 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW      291 

deemed  to  be  a  weakness  of  our  system  of  government  in 
foreign  affairs.    He  said: 

Foreign  politics  demand  scarcely  any  of  those  qualities  which  a  democ- 
racy possesses,  and  they  require  on  the  contrary  the  perfect  use  of  almost 
all  those  faculties  in  which  it  is  deficient.  Democracy  is  favorable  to  the 
increase  of  the  internal  resources  of  the  State;  it  tends  to  diffuse  a  moder- 
ate independence;  it  promotes  the  growth  of  public  spirit,  and  fortifies  the 
respect  which  is  entertained  for  law  in  all  classes  of  society;  and  these  are 
advantages  which  only  exercise  an  indirect  influence  over  the  relations 
which  one  people  bears  to  another.  But  a  democracy  is  unable  to  regulate 
the  details  of  an  important  undertaking,  to  persevere  in  a  design,  and  to 
work  out  its  execution  in  the  presence  of  serious  obstacles.  It  cannot  com- 
bine its  measures  with  secrecy,  and  it  will  not  await  their  consequences 
with  patience.  These  are  qualities  which  more  especially  belong  to  an 
individual  or  to  an  aristocracy,  and  they  are  precisely  the  means  by  which 
an  individual  people  attains  to  a  predominant  position. 

So  long  as  foreign  affairs  were  to  continue  as  they  were  car- 
ried on  in  his  day,  De  Tocqueville  was  doubtless  right.  It  is 
because  democracies  are  not  fitted  to  conduct  foreign  affairs 
as  they  were  conducted  in  De  Tocqueville's  day  that  the 
prevalence  of  democracy  throughout  the  world  makes  inevi- 
table a  change  in  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs.  Such  affairs 
when  conducted  by  democratic  governments  must  necessarily 
be  marked  by  the  absence  of  those  undertakings  and  designs, 
and  those  measures  combined  with  secrecy,  prosecuted  with 
perseverance,  for  which  he  declares  democracies  to  be  unfit. 

This  characteristic  of  popular  governments  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  hundred  years  of  peace  which  we  are  all  rather 
proud  of  preserving  throughout  the  three  thousand  miles  of 
boundary  between  Canada  and  the  United  States  without 
fortifications  or  ships  of  war  or  armies.  There  have  been 
many  occasions  when  the  tempers  of  the  men  on  either  side 
of  the  line  were  sorely  tried.  The  disputes  regarding  the 
Northeastern  Boundary,  the  Oregon  Boundary,  the  Alaska 
Boundary,  were  acute;  the  affair  of  the  Caroline  on  the 
Niagara  River,  the  Fenian  raid  upon  Lake  Champlain,  the 


292  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

enforcement  of  the  fisheries  regulations,  were  exasperating 
and  serious,  but  upon  neither  side  of  the  boundary  did 
democracy  harbor  those  sinister  designs  of  aggrandizement 
and  ambition  which  have  characterized  the  autocratic  gov- 
ernments of  the  world.  On  neither  side  was  there  suspicion 
of  any  such  designs  in  the  democracy  across  the  border.  The 
purpose  of  each  nation  was  merely  to  stand  up  for  its  own 
rights,  and  so  reason  has  always  controlled,  and  every  ques- 
tion has  been  settled  by  fair  agreement,  or  by  arbitral  deci- 
sion; and,  finally,  for  the  past  eight  years  a  permanent 
International  Commission  with  judicial  powers  has  disposed 
of  the  controversies  arising  between  the  citizens  of  the  two 
countries  along  the  border  as  unobtrusively  and  naturally  as 
if  the  questions  arose  between  citizens  of  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia. Such  has  been  the  course  of  events,  not  because  of  any 
great  design  or  far-seeing  plan,  but  because  it  is  the  natural 
working  of  democratic  government. 

The  incapacity  of  democracies  to  maintain  policies  of 
aggression  may  be  fairly  inferred  from  the  extreme  reluctance 
with  which  they  incur  the  expense  and  make  the  sacrifices 
necessary  for  defense.  Cherishing  no  secret  designs  of  aggres- 
sion themselves,  they  find  it  difficult  to  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  such  designs  on  the  part  of  other  nations.  Only 
imminent  and  deadly  peril  awakens  them  to  activity.  It  was 
this  obstinate  confidence  in  the  peaceable  intentions  of  all 
mankind  which  met  Lord  Roberts  (honored,  trusted  and 
beloved  as  he  was),  when  long  before  the  present  war  he 
vainly  sought  to  awaken  the  people  of  England  to  the  danger 
that  he  saw  so  plainly  in  Germany's  stupendous  preparation 
for  conquest.  It  is  well  known  that  when  the  war  came 
France  was  almost  upon  the  verge  of  diminishing  her  army 
by  a  reduction  in  the  years  of  service.  In  our  own  country  a 
great  people,  virile,  fearless,  and  loyal,  have  remained  indif- 
ferent to  all  the  voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  for  prepara- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW      293 

tion,  because  the  American  people  could  not  be  made  to 
believe  that  anything  was  going  to  happen  inconsistent  with 
the  existence  everywhere  of  those  peaceful  purposes  of  which 
they  themselves  were  conscious. 

There  is  a  radical  incompatibility  between  popular  self- 
government  and  continuous  military  discipline,  for  military 
control  is  in  itself  despotic.  As  compared  with  military 
autocracies,  the  normal  condition  of  democracies  is  a  con- 
dition of  inferior  military  efficiency.  This  invariable  char- 
acteristic of  democracy  leaves  it  no  option  in  its  treatment  of 
autocracy.  The  two  kinds  of  government  cannot  live  per- 
manently side  by  side.  So  long  as  military  autocracy  con- 
tinues, democracy  is  not  safe  from  attacks,  which  are  certain 
to  come  some  time,  and  certain  to  find  it  unprepared.  The 
conflict  is  inevitable  and  universal;  and  it  is  a  outrance.  To 
be  safe,  democracy  must  kill  its  enemy  when  it  can  and  where 
it  can.  The  world  cannot  be  half  democratic  and  half  auto- 
cratic. It  must  be  all  democratic  or  all  Prussian.  There  can 
be  no  compromise.  If  it  is  all  Prussian,  there  can  be  no  real 
international  law.  If  it  is  all  democratic,  international  law 
honored  and  observed  may  well  be  expected  as  a  natural 
development  of  the  principles  which  make  democratic  self- 
government  possible. 

The  democracies  of  the  world  are  gathered  about  the  last 
stronghold  of  autocracy,  and  engaged  in  the  conflict  thrust 
upon  them  by  dynastic  policy  pursuing  the  ambition  of 
rulers  under  claim  of  divine  right  for  their  own  aggrandize- 
ment, their  own  glory,  without  regard  to  law,  or  justice,  or 
faith.  The  issue  today  and  tomorrow  may  seem  uncertain; 
but  the  end  is  not  uncertain.  No  one  knows  how  soon  the 
end  will  come,  or  what  dreadful  suffering  and  sacrifice  may 
stand  between;  but  the  progress  of  the  great  world  move- 
ment that  has  doomed  autocracy  cannot  be  turned  back,  or 
defeated. 


294  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

That  is  the  great  peace  movement.  There  the  millions  who 
have  learned  under  freedom  to  hope  and  aspire  for  better 
things  are  paying  the  price  that  the  peaceful  peoples  of  the 
earth  may  live  in  security  under  the  protection  of  law  based 
upon  all-embracing  justice,  and  supreme  in  the  community 
of  nations. 


THE  SPREAD  OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW  IN 
THE  AMERICAS 

ADDRESS  AS  TOASTMASTER  AT  A   BANQUET  OF  THE   DIVISION 

OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW  OF  THE  CARNEGIE  ENDOWMENT  FOR 

INTERNATIONAL  PEACE,  WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER  30,  1915 

The  Second  Pan  American  Scientific  Congress,  composed  of  official  and  unofficial 
delegates  of  the  twenty-one  American  republics,  met  at  Washington,  December  27, 
1915  —  January  8,  1916.  Section  VI  of  the  congress  was  devoted  to  international 
law,  public  law,  and  jurisprudence,  and  the  American  Society  of  International  Law, 
the  Political  Science  Association,  and  the  American  Society  for  the  Judicial  Settle- 
ment of  International  Disputes,  held  joint  sessions  with  the  members  of  this  sec- 
tion. The  American  Institute  of  International  Law  held  its  first  session  in  connec- 
tion with  and  under  the  auspices  of  the  congress,  and  it  likewise  held  a  joint  meeting 
with  the  American  Society  of  International  Law,  affiliated  with  it.  The  American 
Institute  of  International  Law  adopted  at  this  session  its  declaration  of  the 
rights  and  duties  of  nations.  For  further  information  concerning  the  origin,  the 
nature,  and  the  services  which  this  scientific  body  could  hope  to  render,  composed 
as  it  is  of  five  publicists  from  each  of  the  American  republics,  the  reader  is  referred 
to  Mr.  Root's  address,  entitled  "  The  Declaration  of  the  Rights  and  Duties  of 
Nations  of  the  American  Institute  of  International  Law,"  to  be  found  in  the  volume 
of  his  Addresses  on  International  Subjects,  pages  413-426,  included  in  this  series. 

On  December  30,  1915,  the  Division  of  International  Law  of  the  Carnegie 
Endowment  for  International  Peace  gave  a  banquet  to  the  delegates  attending 
Section  VI  of  the  Second  Pan  American  Scientific  Congress,  the  members  of  the 
American  Institute  of  International  Law,  of  the  American  Society  of  International 
Law,  of  the  Political  Science  Association,  and  of  the  American  Society  for  the 
Judicial  Settlement  of  International  Disputes. 

In  the  course  of  the  remarks  delivered  by  Dr.  Ernesto  Quesada,  chairman  of  the 
Argentinian  delegation  and  a  distinguished  jurist  and  economist  of  his  country,  he 
thus  referred  to  the  problems  confronting  the  Americas,  to  the  r61e  of  the  United 
States  in  the  settlement  of  these  problems,  and  to  its  illustrious  statesmen  in  the 
past  and  its  illustrious  statesman  of  the  present  day: 

We  all  think,  in  the  Southern  Hemisphere,  that  this  is  perchance  the  most 
solemn  and  important  moment  in  the  life  of  civilized  nations,  and  that  it  repre- 
sents a  real  turning-point  in  history.  The  classical  international  law,  framed 
alike  by  facts  and  doctrine  in  the  ancient  nations  of  Europe,  has  in  effect  com- 
mitted suicide.  The  present  terrible  and  sad  experience  shows  that  it  was  a  sort 
of  compromise,  accepted  always  with  the  hidden  thought  that  when  the  ambi- 
tions or  the  interests  of  those  nations  should  conflict  with  it,  it  need  not  be 
observed.    We,  in  America,  have  quite  different  international  problems,  and 

295 


296  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

our  special  geographical  positions  give  to  these  a  characteristically  continental 
aspect.  The  old  European  international  law  is  bankrupt:  the  new  American 
international  law  will  step  in,  in  its  place,  as  representing  the  modern  tendencies 
of  civilization,  free  from  the  entangling  traditions  that  guide  the  policy  of  the 
nations  of  Europe. 

Therefore,  in  this  very  important  moment  of  history,  America  must  hold 
upright  this  part  of  the  social  sciences  and  remodel  it  in  order  to  give  it  per- 
manent life,  independent  of  the  unavoidable  fetters  of  the  secular  European 
tradition.  This  is  the  noble  task  that  America  must  take  energetically  in  its 
hands,  combining  the  efforts  of  more  than  twenty  nations.  The  United 
States,  as  the  richest  and  most  powerful  of  them  all,  as  perhaps  the  most 
important  nation  in  the  whole  world,  with  its  hundred  millions  of  citizens  and 
its  unbounded  resources,  must  forcefully  lead  the  way.  We  all  think,  in  both 
American  divisions  of  the  hemisphere,  that  the  pivot  of  civilization  will  in  the 
future  be  this  country,  and  that  as  a  consequence,  its  statesmen  —  I  mean 
those  of  the  sort  of  Hamilton  and  Webster  in  the  past,  and,  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  express  the  South  American  opinion  clearly,  of  Mr.  Root  in  the  present  — 
must  be  aware  of  the  extraordinary  importance  of  this  historic  moment.  We 
all  have  our  eyes  fixed  on  the  White  House,  and,  with  respect  to  international 
matters,  we  follow  anxiously  all  its  moves. 
As  president  of  the  American  Society  of  International  Law  whose  representative 

he  was  in  the  congress,  Mr.  Root  attended  the  banquet,  and  in  his  capacity  as 

toast  master  delivered  the  following  address: 

I  CANNOT  refrain,  in  opening  the  postprandial  exercises 
of  this  evening,  from  expressing  the  great  satisfaction  I 
feel  in  taking  part  in  the  transformation  of  the  serious  and 
sometimes  dry  exercises  of  our  meetings  into  this  social  func- 
tion. It  is  especially  agreeable  to  me  because  I  cherish  such 
rich  and  precious  memories  of  hospitality  received  from  our 
South  American  guests. 

I  have  said  many  times  to  my  own  countrymen,  without 
ever  provoking  resentment  on  their  part,  that  I  wish  they 
could  all  learn  a  lesson  in  courtesy  and  the  generosity  of 
friendship  from  our  brothers  in  South  America.  I  should 
have  felt  that  my  own  participation  in  this  congress  was 
imperfect  and  lacked  an  important  element,  if  I  could  not 
have  met  you,  my  old  friends  of  South  America,  in  this 
gathering,  which  excludes  the  serious  and  the  scientific,  and 
seeks  to  cultivate  and  satisfy  only  the  generous  sentiments 
of  friendship. 


INTERNATIONAL  LAW  IN  THE  AMERICAS    297 

It  is  with  very  great  pleasure  that  I  announce  to  you  all  the 
completion  of  the  first  step  in  what  I  believe  will  be  a  very 
useful  and  important  organization  for  united  effort  on  the 
part  of  representatives  of  all  the  American  nations  in  the 
direction  of  developing  and  strengthening  the  law  of  nations. 
You  will  recall  that  up  to  the  time  when  the  American  Society 
of  International  Law  was  formed  there  had  never  been  such  a 
society  in  this  wide  world.  The  development  of  the  law  of 
nations  was  left  to  governments  and  to  private  individuals 
and  to  two  great  organizations  which  were  international  in 
their  character,  the  Association  of  International  Law  and  the 
Institut  de  Droit  International,  both  of  them  founded  in 
1873. 

But  the  first  departure  in  the  formation  of  a  national 
society  of  international  law,  a  society  having  a  double 
aspect,  one  to  promote  the  development  of  the  law  inter- 
nationally and  the  other  to  educate  and  instruct  the  people 
of  the  particular  nations  in  their  knowledge  of  the  law  of 
nations,  was  that  which  was  set  in  motion  by  our  friend 
Dr.  James  Brown  Scott,  some  ten  years  ago. 

The  response,  which  I  confess  was  to  me  far  beyond  expec- 
tation, of  the  people  of  this  country  to  the  efforts  of  that 
organization  has  demonstrated  the  practicability  of  such  an 
institution;  and  the  rapid  changes  in  events  have  demon- 
strated year  by  year  more  cogently  the  necessity  of  such  an 
institution.  For  if  democracies  are  to  take  charge  of  govern- 
ment in  international  affairs,  as  they  are  taking  charge  of 
government  in  national  affairs,  it  is  of  primary,  of  vital 
importance,  that  the  people  of  every  democracy  shall  learn 
their  duties,  as  well  as  their  rights,  in  their  relations  with  each 
other.  That  cannot  be  done  by  the  meeting  of  a  few  savants 
to  cultivate  the  mystery  of  international  law.  That  can  be 
done  only  by  broadening  out  into  societies  within  which  shall 
be  gathered  the  men  of  all  callings,  lovers  of  liberty  and  jus- 


298  MISCELLANEOUS  ADDRESSES 

tice,  who  desire  to  do  their  duty  as  members  of  self-govern- 
ing democracies,  not  alone  toward  themselves  and  their 
fellows,  but  toward  all  other  nations.  That  can  only  be  done 
by  the  creation  of  a  great  number  of  competent  leaders  of 
opinion  who  shall  direct  the  impulses  and  the  action  of  their 
neighbors  and  their  fellow-citizens  in  the  performance  of  the 
duty  of  administering  the  affairs  of  nations  by  the  rule  of 
international  justice. 

The  demonstrated  success  of  this  new  departure  of  the 
Society  of  International  Law  has  resulted  in  the  formation  of 
similar  societies  in  Europe,  and  it  has  resulted,  through  much 
communication,  correspondence,  and  intercourse,  through 
the  devoted  efforts  of  Dr.  Scott,  through  a  personal  visit 
paid  by  our  friend,  the  former  ambassador  to  France, 
Robert  Bacon,  in  the  formation  of  a  national  society  of 
international  law  in  every  American  republic.  Every  one  has 
its  society,  prepared  to  perform  the  great  duty  of  instructing 
the  people  of  the  country  in  their  international  duties  and  in 
aiding  the  government  of  their  country  in  its  international 
intercourse. 

Yesterday  there  was  inaugurated  an  institute  —  the 
American  Institute  of  International  Law  —  which  gathered 
together  the  representatives  of  all  these  national  societies, 
twenty-one  in  number,  which  representatives  were  elected 
by  each  of  the  national  societies  whose  members  may  attend 
its  meetings  and  are  eligible  for  membership  in  the  Insti- 
tute. Through  that  Institute  there  will  be  hereafter  an 
institution  for  the  expression  and  effectuation  of  the  good 
will  and  love  for  peace  and  sense  of  justice  of  all  the  Ameri- 
can countries  with  relation  to  each  other. 

Peace  we  all  love;  good  will  we  all  entertain;  friendship 
we  all  feel.  The  nature  of  man  is  kindly;  all  the  peoples  of 
the  earth  prefer  to  be  friends.  But  good  will,  friendliness 
and  good  understanding,  because  they  have  no  institutions 


INTERNATIONAL  LAW  IN  THE  AMERICAS     299 

through  which  they  may  receive  effect,  stand  powerless  before 
sinister  designs,  schemes  of  aggrandizement,  and  the  lust  for 
power  and  wealth.  Here  in  the  Americas  is  created  an 
institution  through  which  the  good  will  and  friendliness  of 
the  American  peoples  may  have  voice  and  effectiveness.  .  .  . 

We  approach  the  conclusion  of  this  festival.  I  shall  ask 
you  to  join  me  in  several  appropriate  toasts. 

First,  rise  and  drink  to  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

(The  guests  arose  and  drank  a  toast  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States.) 

And  now  rise  again,  and  drink  to  a  toast  to  which  I  know 
every  heart  will  respond  in  consonance  with  the  intelligence 
of  every  guest  at  this  board  —  the  American  Republics,  one 
and  indivisible,  forever. 

(The  guests  arose  and  drank  a  toast  to  the  American 
Republics.) 

And  yet  again,  join  in  a  toast  of  broader  import,  to  human- 
ity, the  universal  concert  of  civilized  nations,  for  the  prog- 
ress of  civilization  and  the  reign  of  peace  in  the  world  —  to 
humanity,  which  the  religion  we  all  profess  aims  to  make 
perfect  —  to  peace  and  good  will. 

(The  guests  arose  and  drank  a  toast  to  humanity.) 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abraham,  Heights  of,  12. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  American  presi- 
dent, 187. 

Adirondacks,  the,  61. 

Alaska,  102. 

Alaska  Boundary  dispute,  the,  97,  154, 
164,  291. 

Alaska  Boundary  Treaty,  the,  102. 

Albany,  New  York,  19,  20. 

Albany  county,  New  York,  26,  45,  57. 

Algeria,  145. 

Algonquin  Indians,  4,  5,  12,  14. 

American  Academy  in  Rome,  the,  195, 
197,  206,  208  f. 

American  Federation  of  Arts,  address 
before  the,  205-209. 

American  ideals,  address  on  the  preser- 
vation of,  259-266. 

American  Institute  of  Architects,  ad- 
dresses before,  189-196,  198-204. 

American  Institute  of  International  Law, 
the,  295. 

American  Revolution,  the,  284. 

American  Society  for  the  Judicial  Settle- 
ment of  International  Disputes,  the, 
295. 

American  Society  of  International  Law, 
the,  295,  296,  297. 

Amherst,  Jeffrey,  English  general,  27,  31. 

Amherst  College,  42. 

Antwerp,  206. 

Armenians,  destruction  of  the,  283. 

Army  War  College,  the,  197,  200  f.,  203. 

Art  and  architecture  in  America,  address 
on,  189-196. 

Arthur,  Chester  Alan,  American  presi- 
dent, address  on,  109-113. 

Asbury  African  church,  the,  in  New 
York,  40,  77. 

Association  of  International  Law,  the, 
297. 


Atlanta,  capture  of  (1864),  116. 
Austria,  House  of,  10,  287. 
Austrian  Succession,  War  of  the,  286. 
Avery,  Charles,  professor  of  chemistry, 

42  f. 
Aztecs,  the,  8. 

Balbed,  ancient  city  of  Syria,  192. 

Bacon,  Francis,  English  philosopher,  11. 

Bacon,  Robert,  American  diplomat,  298. 

Bacon,  William  J.,  trustee  of  Hamilton 
College,  41. 

Baden-Powell,  Sir  Robert,  British  gen- 
eral, 134. 

Balfour,  Arthur  James,  British  minister, 
268. 

Baltimore,  195,  211. 

Banks  of  Newfoundland,  the,  7. 

Barnard,  Frederick  Augustus  Porter, 
American  educator,  77. 

Barnes,  Albert,  American  Biblical  com- 
mentator, 62. 

Barrett,  George  Carter,  American  jurist, 
memorial  address  on,  241  ff. 

Bear,  the,  Iroquois  clan,  6. 

Beardsley,  Samuel,  American  jurist,  61. 

Beaumarchais,  Pierre  Augustin  Caron 
de,  French  financier  and  writer,  141. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  American  clergy- 
man, 135. 

Belgium,  285. 

Benson,  Egbert,  27. 

Berlin,  Congress  of  (1878),  283,  288. 

Bill  of  Rights,  the,  53. 

Boer  War,  the,  97. 

Bogota,  99. 

Boston,  31,  191. 

Botanic  Garden,  the,  in  New  York,  40. 

Bourbon  restoration,  the,  in  France,  284. 

Bradley,  Dan,  27. 

Brazil,  9,  276. 


303 


304 


INDEX 


BrSboeuf,  Jean  de,  French  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, 12,  27. 

Bristol,  Eli,  27. 

British  Columbia,  102. 

British  Dominions,  the,  285. 

Bronson,  Green  Carrier,  American  law- 
yer, 61. 

Brougham,  John,  American  actor,  135. 

Brown,  Elmer  Ellsworth,  address  at  the 
inauguration  of,  71  ff. 

Brown,  Samuel  Gilman,  president  of 
Hamilton  College,  42. 

Brown  University,  address  at,  91-101. 

Buchanan,  James,  American  president, 
233. 

Building  of  the  Pan  American  Union, 
the,  202. 

Bulfinch,  Charles,  American  architect, 
190,  191,  204. 

Burgess,  John  William,  professor  in 
Columbia  University,  75. 

Burgoyne,  John,  English  general,  20,  21. 

Burr,  Aaron,  American  vice-president, 
48. 

Business  and  politics,  address  on,  249- 
258. 

Butler,  Nicholas  Murray,  president  of 
Columbia  University,  75  f . 

Butler,  Richard,  manufacturer,  217. 

Cabots,  the,  navigators,  7. 

California,  University  of,  73. 

Cambon,  Jules  Martin,  French  ambassa- 
dor, parting  address  to,  145  ff . 

Campbell,  Douglas,  American  lawyer 
and  historian,  86. 

Canada,  3,  97,  291  f.;  French  rule  in, 
4-15;  addresses  on,  151-187;  the 
Canadian  reciprocity  agreement,  163- 
187. 

Cannon,  Joseph  Gurney,  American  con- 
gressman, address  on,  213  ff. 

Capitol,  the,  at  Washington,  195. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  gift  of,  towards  the 
John  Hay  Library,  91. 

Carnegie  Endowment  for  International 
Peace,  the,  295. 


Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington,  the, 
72. 

Cannot,  Marie  Frangois  Sadi,  French 
president,  address  on  the  assassination 
of,  149  f . 

Carolinas,  the,  7,  20,  116. 

Caroline,  affair  of  the,  291. 

Carter,  James  Coolidge,  American  law- 
yer, 237. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  French  navigator,  7. 

Cassatt,  Alexander  Johnston,  American 
railroad  president,  195. 

Castilian  Days,  92. 

Catlin,  Marcus,  professor  of  mathe- 
matics at  Hamilton  College,  23. 

Cayugas,  Iroquois  tribe,  5. 

Cecil,  William,  English  statesman,  11. 

Central  America,  221,  222,  265,  271,  272. 

Champlain,  Lake,  20,  291;  address  at  the 
tercentenary  celebration  of  the  dis- 
covery of,  3-15. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  French  explorer, 
3,  8,  12,  15;  his  discovery  of  Lake 
Champlain,  4  f . 

Character,  importance  of,  on  the  bench, 
234,  239. 

Characteristics,  inherited  and  acquired, 
24. 

Charles  V,  emperor  (1519-1556),  king  of 
Spain  (as  Charles  I,  1516-1556),  9. 

Charles  I,  king  of  England  (1625-1646), 
11. 

Charleston,  South  Carolina,  191. 

Charlotte  county,  New  York,  57. 

Chartism,  284. 

Chastellux,  Marquis  de,  French  general 
and  author,  143. 

Chattanooga,  battle  of  (1863),  116. 

Chicago,  137,  199. 

Chicago  Exposition,  the,  194,  206,  207. 

Chili,  bay  of,  100. 

China,  99-102,  262,  285. 

City  and  country  life  compared,  62  f. 

Civil  War,  the,  115  ff.,  119  ff.,  123-127, 
219,  233,  261. 

Clark,  Clarence  Don,  American  senator, 
178. 


INDEX 


305 


Clark,  Erastus,  first  treasurer  of  Hamil- 
ton College,  27,  41. 

Clarkson,  Matthew,  American  general, 
26,  45. 

Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  the  (1850),  99, 
102. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  American  president, 
126,  237,  272  f.;  address  on,  105-108. 

Clifford,  Nathan,  American  jurist,  233. 

Clinton,  George,  American  statesman, 
25,  26,  57,  81. 

Clinton  Light  Horse,  the,  35. 

Colombia,  99. 

Colonists,  English,  in  America,  motives 
of,  11  f. 

Columbia  College  and  University,  39,  40, 
71;  address  at,  75-79. 

Columbia  School  of  Mines,  the,  77. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  158. 

Commission  for  the  Extension  and  Per- 
fection of  the  Park  System  of  Wash- 
ington, the,  197,  200. 

Commons,  House  of,  in  England,  284. 

Commune,  the,  284. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  American  senator,  61. 

Connecticut,  14,  80,  32. 

Conquistadores,  9,  158. 

Constituent  Assembly,  the,  in  France, 
284. 

Constitution,  the,  21,  53,  111,  125,  253. 

Constitutions,  establishment  of,  285. 

Continental  Congress,  the,  33. 

Corinth,  battle  of  (1862),  116. 

Court  of  Honor,  the,  at  the  Chicago  Ex- 
position, 207. 

Cowpens,  battle  of  the  (1781),  144. 

Crimean  War,  the,  283. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  11. 

Cuba,  220,  221,  265. 

Cummins,  Albert  Baird,  American  sena- 
tor, 187. 

Curriculum,  changes  in  the,  47  f . 

Dakota,  252. 

Danville,  Illinois,  213,  214. 
Darling,  Henry,  president  of  Hamilton 
College,  42. 


Dartmouth,  Earl  of,  patron  of  Dart- 
mouth College,  18,  21,  32;  patron  of 
the  school  at  Lebanon,  28. 
Dartmouth  College,  27,  41,  42;  address 
at,  17-22;  relation  to  Hamilton  Col- 
lege, 17;  contemplated  establishment 
of,  on  the  Mohawk,  31  f. 
Dartmouth  College  Case,  the,  21. 

Davis,  John,  American  jurist,  memorial 
address  on,  239  f . 

Deane,  James,  missionary  to  the  Oneidas, 
18,  19,  20,  27. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the,  123. 

Delaware,  river,  6,  10,  20. 

Delaware,  state,  7. 

Delta  Phi,  college  fraternity,  47. 

Democracy,  weaknesses  and  dangers  of, 
50-59,  288  f.,  292  f.;  inferior  military 
efficiency  of,  293;  address  on  the  effect 
of  democracy  on  international  law, 
281-294. 

Denio,  Hiram,  trustee  of  Hamilton 
College,  41,  61. 

Denonville,  Marquis,  governor  of 
Canada,  13. 

Depew,  Chauncey  Mitchell,  American 
orator,  85. 

Dexter,  Simon  Newton,  trustee  of  Ham- 
ilton College,  41. 

Dillingham,  William  Paul,  American 
senator,  182  f. 

Dixon,  Joseph  Moore,  American  senator, 
179. 

Dodge,  William  E.,  217. 

Dogger  Bank  incident,  the,  268. 

Drake,  Francis,  English  navigator,  7,  11, 
158. 

Duane,  James,  American  jurist,  81. 

Duquesne,  Fort,  13. 

Duquesne,  Marquis,  governor  of  Canada, 
12. 

Dutch,  the,  10,  85-90. 

Dutch  East  India  Company,  the,  9. 

Dutch  founders  of  New  York,  address 
on  the,  85-90. 

Dwight,  Sereno,  president  of  Hamilton 
College,  40. 


306 


INDEX 


Dwight,  Theodore  William,   American 

jurist,  76. 
Dwight,  Timothy,  American  educator, 

37. 

Eastern  Question,  the,  137. 

Edict  of  Nantes,  revocation  of  the,  89. 

Edison,  Thomas  Alva,  American  in- 
ventor, 47. 

Education,  liberal,  value  of,  57  f. 

Educational  institutions,  differentiation 
of,  72  f . 

Egypt,  271. 

Eliot,  Charles  William,  American  educa- 
tor, 17. 

Elizabeth,  queen  of  England  (1558- 
1603),  11,  154. 

Engineers'  School  of  Application,  the, 
197,  200. 

England,  11,  27,  97,  98,  100,  146,  152, 
153,  160,  271,  283,  284. 

Episcopacy,  reaction  against,  in  England, 
11. 

Europe,  8,  10,  123,  146,  154,  181,  194, 
252,  271,  272,  283,  286,  287,  292,  296. 

Evarts,  William  Maxwell,  American 
lawyer  and  senator,  217. 

Fenian  raid,  the,  291. 

Ferdinand  VII,  king  of  Spain,  285. 

Field,  Stephen  Johnson,  American  jurist, 
233. 

Finley,  John  Huston,  American  educa- 
tor, 81  f. 

Fisher,  Samuel  Ware,  president  of  Ham- 
ilton College,  34,  42. 

Fisheries  regulations,  the,  292. 

Florida,  7,  8. 

Foot,  Moses,  27. 

Fort  Fisher,  North  Carolina,  address  to 
the  veterans  of,  119  ff. 

Fort  Schuyler,  New  York,  33. 

Fort  Stanwix,  New  York,  21,  28,  32,  61. 

Fort  Sumter,  attack  on,  1 17. 

France,  89,  100,  207,  227,  286,  292; 
struggle  of,  for  the  empire  of  America, 
4-15;    presentation  of  the  Franklin 


medal  to,  141-144;  parting  address  to 
M.  Cambon,  145  ff.;  the  assassination 
of  President  Carnot,  149  f.;  element  of 
nobility  in  the  first  French  Republic, 
264  f . ;  progress  of  democracy  in,  284. 

Franchise  extension  in  England,  284. 

Francis,  refugee,  89. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  American  states- 
man, 13,  47,  63,  151;  addresses  on, 
141-144. 

Frederick  II  (the  Great),  king  of  Prussia, 
35,  286. 

French  Academy  in  Rome,  the,  195,  209. 

French  canal  company,  see  Panama 
Canal  Company. 

French  Revolution,  the,  10. 

Frobisher,  Martin,  English  navigator,  7, 
11,  158. 

Frontenac,  Comte  de,  governor  of 
Canada,  12,  13,  14. 

Fuller,  Melville  Weston,  American  jurist, 
memorial  address  on,  237  f. 

Fuller,  William  H.,  217. 

Gama,  Vasco  da,  Portuguese  navigator, 
158. 

Garfield,  James  Abram,  American  presi- 
dent, 110,  111,  112,  150. 

General  Electric  Company,  the,  47. 

Genesee,  river,  5. 

George  HI,  king  of  England,  18,  21,  28, 
32. 

Germany,  10,  98,  100,  227,  292. 

Gibbon,  James,  cardinal,  address  on, 
211  f. 

Gilbert,  Humphrey,  English  navigator,  7. 

Gold,  Thomas  R.,  27. 

Gosnold,  Bartholomew,  English  naviga- 
tor, 7. 

Gourgues,  Dominique  de,  Gascon  sol- 
dier, 7. 

Governor's  Island,  government  station 
at,  197. 

Grant,  Ulysses  Simpson,  American  gen- 
eral and  president,  116,  233. 

Grant  Memorial,  the,  202. 

Grasse,  Comte  de,  French  admiral,  142. 


INDEX 


307 


Great  Britain,  95,  99,  107,  153,  164,  165, 
166,  268,  276;  contends  with  France 
for  the  sovereignty  of  North  America, 
4-15. 

Great  Lakes,  the,  20,  153. 

Greece,  192,  271. 

Greek-letter  societies,  46  f. 

Grey,  Lord,  governor-general  of  Canada, 
159. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  Dutch  publicist,  281. 

Guiteau,  Charles,  assassin,  110. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  king  of  Sweden 
(1611-1632),  10. 

Hadfield,  George,  American  architect, 
190. 

Hague,  The,  First  Peace  Conference  at 
(1899),  98,  288;  Second  (1907),  288. 

Hague  Convention,  the,  for  the  Pacific 
Settlement  of  International  Disputes, 
98. 

Hague  Tribunal,  the,  98,  99. 

Half  Moon,  the,  8. 

Hallet,  Stephen,  American  architect,  190. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  American  states- 
man, 19,  33,  48,  81,  82,  296;  his  con- 
nection with  the  founding  of  Hamilton 
College,  26,  27,  34,  36,  45. 

Hamilton  College,  65,  73,  75,  76,  77;  ad- 
dress at  the  centenary  of,  23-44; 
relations  with  Union  College,  45  f . 

Hamilton  Oneida  Academy,  predecessor 
of  Hamilton  College,  23,  25  f.,  33-40, 
45. 

Hampden,  John,  English  statesman,  11. 

Hanover,  New  Hampshire,  18. 

Harlan,  John  Marshall,  American  jurist, 
memorial  address  on,  233. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  American  president, 
126. 

Harvard,  John,  72. 

HarvardCollege,  41. 

Hawaii,  102. 

Hay,  John,  secretary  of  state,  address 
on,  91-101. 

Hayes,  Rutherford  Birchard,  American 
president,  126, 


Hay-Herran  Treaty,  the,  99. 

Henry  VHI,  king  of  England,  11. 

Henry  IV,  king  of  France  (1589-1610), 
10,  146,  154. 

Herkimer,  Nicholas,  American  general, 
21,  61. 

Herkimer  county,  New  York,  26,  35,  45. 

Hoban,  James,  American  architect,  189, 
190,  195,  204. 

Ho-de-no-saunee,  5. 

Holland,  9,  85,  89,  285. 

Holy  Alliance,  the,  282,  285. 

Hong-Kong,  100. 

Hood,  Thomas,  English  poet,  95. 

Hopkins,  Sewal,  27. 

Hornbostel,  Henry,  American  architect, 
203. 

Howard,  John  Eager,  American  general, 
144. 

Hudson,  river,  5,  6,  8,  20. 

Hudson,  Henry,  English  navigator,  8. 

Huguenots,  the,  11,  89;  in  Florida,  7. 

Hundred  Years'  War,  the,  146. 

Hunt,  Richard  Morris,  American  archi- 
tect, 190. 

Huntingdon,  Countess  of,  English  re- 
ligious leader,  29. 

Huron,  Lake,  7. 

Hutchinson,  Ann,  Antinomian  enthu- 
siast, 89. 

Illinois,  University  of,  78. 

Indiana,  7. 

Indies,  the,  7. 

Individualism,  antagonists  of,  49,  124  f. 

Industrial  life,  various  stages  of,  among 
the  American  Indians,  5. 

Institut  de  Droit  International,  297. 

Interdependence,  development  of,  49. 

International  Commission,  the,  292. 

International  law,  science  of,  the  product 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  281;  ad- 
dress on  the  spread  of  international  law 
in  the  Americas,  295-299. 

International  Paper  Company,  the,  185. 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  the, 
252,  256. 


308 


INDEX 


Iroquois,  the,  Indian  confederacy,  4-15, 

20,  30,  31-34,  61  f. 
Irving,  Washington,  American  historian 

and  essayist,  88. 
Italy,  10,  98,  285. 

Jamaica,  157. 

James  I,  king  of  England,  11. 

James  II,  king  of  England,  11. 

Jamestown,  Virginia,  8. 

Japan,  100,  101,  207,  262,  276,  285. 

Japanese,  the,  278. 

Jay,  John,  American  statesman,  81. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  American  president, 

189,  190,  191  ff.,  195,  197,   201,  202, 

290. 
Jews,  the,  97. 

Johnson,  Jacob,  missionary,  32. 
Johnson,  Sir  William,  superintendent  of 

Indian  affairs  in  the  American  colonies, 

28  f.,  32. 
Johnston,  Joseph  Eccleston,  Confederate 

general,  116. 
Joint  High  Commission  of  1898,  the,  97, 

183. 
Joliet,  Louis,  French-Canadian  explorer, 

12. 
Jones,  John  Paul,  naval  officer,  144. 
Joy,  Charles  Arad,  American  chemist,  77. 
Jusserand,  Jean  J.,  French  ambassador, 

reply  of,  143  f. 

Kansas-Nebraska  conflict,  the,  94. 

Kappa  Alpha,  college  fraternity,  47. 

Kent,  James,  American  jurist,  25. 

Kentucky,  7. 

Kernan,  Francis,  American  senator,  61. 

Kiao-chau,  China,  100. 

Kirkland,  Daniel,  American  clergyman, 

27. 
Kirkland,  Captain  George  W.,  35. 
Kirkland,  John  Thornton,  president  of 

Harvard  College,  41. 
Kirkland,    General    Joseph,    mayor    of 

Utica,  41,  61. 
Kirkland,    Samuel,    American   educator 

and  missionary  to  the  Indians,  17-22, 


72;  founder  of  Hamilton  Oneida  Acad- 
emy, 23;  his  connection  with  Hamilton 
College,  24,  26,  27-38,  41,  44,  62. 
Knox,  Henry,  American  general,  33. 

La  Barre,  Antoine  Joseph  Lefevre  de, 
governor  of  Canada,  13. 

Labrador,  8. 

La  Caron,  French  missionary,  12,  27. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  142,  144. 

Laird's,  New  York,  37. 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  British  minister,  268. 

Lansing,  John,  27. 

La  Salle,  Sieur  de,  French  explorer,  12. 

Latin  America,  285. 

Latin  race,  the,  145. 

Latrobe,  Benjamin  Henry,  American 
architect,  189,  204. 

Laurier,  Sir  Wilfrid,  Canadian  states- 
man, 163. 

Lawrence,  Frank  Richard,  133. 

Leavenworth  School  of  Military  Instruc- 
tion, the,  117. 

Lebanon,  Connecticut,  30,  32;  Wheel- 
ock's  school  at,  18,  27,  28. 

Legge,  William,  see  Dartmouth,  Earl  of. 

L'Enfant,  Peter  Charles,  Franco-Ameri- 
can engineer  and  architect,  189,  190, 
195,  197,  200,  204. 

Lescarbot,  Marc,  French  explorer,  7. 

Liberty,  meaning  of,  136. 

Likin,  101. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  American  president, 
94  f.,  96,  102,  105,  150,  233. 

Lincoln-Douglas  debates,  the,  94. 

Litchfield  Observatory,  the,  43. 

Loire,  the,  146,  283. 

London,  18. 

Long  House,  the,  see  Iroquois. 

Lord,  Austin  Willard,  American  archi- 
tect, 203. 

Lords,  House  of,  in  England,  284. 

Lotos  Club,  address  at  the,  133-139. 

Lottery,  New  York  state,  for  the  promo- 
tion of  literature,  39  f.,  48  f .,  76  f. 

Louis  XI,  king  of  France  (1461-1483), 
146. 


INDEX 


309 


Louis  XIV,  king  of  France  (1643-1715). 

192,  286. 
Louisburg,  taken  by  the  New  England 

militia,  IS. 

McCIure,  David,  American  clergyman, 
29. 

McCumber,  Porter  J.,  American  senator, 
171,  174  f.,  187. 

McKim,  Charles  Follen,  American  archi- 
tect, 189,  190,  206  f.;  memorial  ad- 
dresses on,  197-204. 

McKinley,  William,  American  president, 
91,  94,  126,  217,  219  f.,  222  f.,  250,  251, 
256,  268. 

Madison,  James,  American  president, 
190,  191. 

Madrid,  95,  147. 

Magna  Charta,  11. 

Maison  Carree,  the,  192. 

Manchu,  domination  of  the,  in  China, 
285. 

Manchuria,  100,  101. 

Marconi,  Guglielmo,  electrical  engineer, 
47. 

Maria  Theresa,  empress  of  Austria,  287. 

Marquette,  Jacques,  French  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, 12,  27. 

Marshall,  John,  American  jurist,  21, 190, 
233,  290. 

Martine,  James  Edgar,  American  sena- 
tor, 176  f. 

Maryland,  7,  211,  292. 

Massachusetts,  7,  14,  85,  170,  171,  178. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  88. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  the,  101,  102. 

Menendez  de  Aviles,  Pedro,  Spanish 
soldier,  7. 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  the,  197, 
206. 

Mexican  War,  the,  46. 

Mexico,  7,  52,  98. 

Mexico,  Gulf  of,  8,  13. 

Michigan,  7. 

Michigan,  University  of,  73. 

Millet,  Francis  Davis,  American  artist, 
187;  memorial  address  on,  205-209. 


Milton,  John,  English  poet,  11. 
Mirabeau,  Comte  de,  French  orator,  144. 
Missionary  Ridge,  battle  of  (1863),  116. 
Mississippi,  river,  12,  13,  20,  62,  286  f. 
Mississippi,  valley  of  the,  7,  178,  287. 
Missouri,  285,  353. 
Mohawk,  river,  18,  20,  32,  34,  61,  64,  65, 

86. 
Mohawks,  Iroquois  tribe,  5,  6,  8. 
Monmouth,  battle  of  (1778),  35. 
Monroe,  James,  American  president,  137, 

287. 
Monroe   Doctrine,   the,    97,    107,    287; 

address  on,  267-273. 
Montana,  278. 
Montcalm,  Marquis  de,  French  general, 

12,  14. 
Monticello,  Virginia,  191,  201. 
Montreal,  7,  27. 
Monts,    Pierre   du   Guast,    Comte   de, 

French  explorer,  7. 
Moody,  Lady  Deborah,  89. 
Moore,  Benjamin,  American  clergyman, 

25. 
Morgan,  John  Pierpont,  American  finan- 
cier, 195;   memorial  address  on,  227- 

232. 
Morris,  Lewis,  American  patriot,  25. 
Mullet,  architect,  195. 
Myers,  Michael,  27. 

Napoleon,  10,  284. 

Napoleonic  Wars,  the,  282. 

Negro,  question  of  the,  125  ff. 

Nelson,  Knute,  American  senator,  164, 

184. 
Nevada,  278. 
New  Amsterdam,   old  name  for  New 

York  city,  9,  87,  88,  90. 
New  England,  7,  30,  32,  62,  88,  161,  206; 

religious  life  in,  19;   missionary  spirit 

in,  27. 
New  England  Society  of  New  York,  the, 

85:  address  before,  267-273. 
Newfoundland,  165. 
New  Hampshire,  14,  21. 
New  Hartford,  New  York,  40. 


310 


INDEX 


New  Jersey,  7,  14,  178. 

Newport,  Rhode  Island,  191. 

New  York,  city,  62,  191,  222,  223,  231, 
275;  address  at  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
its  municipal  government,  129  ff.;  ad- 
dress on,  at  the  Lotos  Club,  133-139. 

New  York,  state,  7,  14,  35,  53  f.,  62,  65, 
150,  167  f.,  170,  171,  178,  213,  237. 

New  York,  University  of  the  State  of,  19, 
25  f.,  45,  81  ff. 

New  York  Central  Railroad,  the,  137. 

New  York  Peace  Society,  address  be- 
fore, 275-280. 

New  York  Tribune,  the,  96. 

Niagara,  river,  5. 

Nicaragua,  99. 

Nicholson,  Joseph,  Quaker  writer,  89. 

Nicolls,  Sir  Richard,  first  English  gover- 
nor of  New  York,  86,  88. 

North,  Edward,  professor  of  Greek,  42. 

North  Carolina,  119. 

Northeastern  Boundary  dispute,  the, 
291. 

North  River  Sugar  Refining  Company 
Case,  the,  242. 

Norwich,  Connecticut,  27. 

Nott,  Eliphalet,  president  of  Union  Col- 
lege, 46,  48. 

Occom,  Samson,  Indian  student  and 
preacher,  17  f.,  19,  20. 

Ohio,  river,  6. 

Ohio,  state,  7. 

Olney,  Richard,  American  secretary  of 
state,  272. 

Onandago,  Indian  chieftain,  19. 

Oneida  county,  New  York,  25,  119;  ad- 
dress before  the  Sons  of  Oneida,  60- 
64. 

Oneida  Lake,*20,  61. 

Oneidas,  Iroquois  tribe,  5,  35,  61,  65; 
labors  of  Kirkland  among,  18-22,  28, 
30,  32,  S3. 

Onondagas,  Iroquois  tribe,  5. 

Ontario,  province,  7,  152. 

Ontario,  Lake,  20,  61, 


'  Open  door,'  the,  in  China,  91,  100  f. 
Oregon  Boundary  dispute,  the,  291. 
Oregon  treaty,  the  (1846),  102. 
Orient,  the,  9,  102. 
Oriskany,  battle  of  (1777),  21,  35,  61. 
Oriskany  Creek,  34,  61,  64. 
Ottawa,  address  at,  157-161. 
Ottoman  Empire,  the,  281,  283. 

Pacific  Ocean,  the,  101  f. 

Pacific  railroads,  the,  117. 

Palatinate,  the,  94. 

Palmyra,  192. 

Panama,  republic,  99,  278  f . 

Panama,  Isthmus  of,  102,  221,  265. 

Panama  Canal,  the,  99,  101,  201,  265.  '■ 

Panama  Canal  Company,  the,  99. 

Pan  American  Scientific  Congress,  Sec- 
ond, 295. 

Paris,  France,  95,  143  f.,  191. 

Paris,  New  York,  25. 

Parish,  Elijah,  American  clergyman,  29. 

Peekskill,  New  York,  137. 

Peking,  China,  137,  262. 

Penney,  Joseph,  president  of  Hamilton 
College,  42. 

Pennsylvania,  7,  14,  170,  178. 

Penobscot  Bay,  8. 

Pepperell,  William,  American  general, 
13. 

Peter  I  (the  Great),  czar  of  Russia  (1682- 
1725),  10.  ' 

Peters,  Christian  Henry  Frederick, 
astronomer,  43. 

Philadelphia,  33,  34,  143,  151,  249,  250. 

Philip  II,  king  of  Spain  (1556-1598),  9. 

Philippines,  the,  102,  123,  137,  206,  220, 
221. 

Phoenicians,  the,  102. 

Pickering,  Timothy,  American  states- 
man, 33  f.,  36. 

Pietro,  C.  I.,  sculptor,  23. 

Pike  County  Ballads,  92. 

Pilgrims,  the,  7. 

Pious  Fund,  the,  98. 

Plantagenets,  the,  146. 

Piatt,  Jonas,  27, 


INDEX 


311 


Plattsburg,  address  at,  3-15. 

Political  Science  Association,  the.  295. 

Polk,  James  Knox,  American  president, 
270. 

Pomeroy,  John  Norton,  American  edu- 
cator, 78. 

Ponce  de  Leon,  Juan,  Spanish  explorer,  7. 

PontgravS,  Frangois,  French  explorer, 
7,8. 

Port  Arthur,  fortress,  100. 

Porto  Rico,  220. 

Port  Royal,  7. 

Portugal,  9,  279,  285. 

Positivist  philosophy,  the,  78  f . 

Poutrincourt,  Sieurde,  French  explorer,  7. 

Pragmatic  Sanction,  the,  of  Charles  VI, 
287. 

Princeton,  New  Jersey,  105. 

Princeton  College,  29,  42. 

Principles,  importance  of,  58. 

Prussia,  10. 

Pujo  investigation,  the,  230. 

Pure  Food  Law,  the,  253,  256. 

Puritans,  the,  in  England,  11;  in  New 
■  England,  267. 

Quebec,  city,  4,  7,  8,  12,  14,  27. 

Queen  Anne  style  in  architecture,  the, 

193. 
Quesada,  Ernesto,  remarks  of,  295  f . 

Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  116. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  English  courtier 
and  colonizer,  11. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  American  states- 
man, 190. 

Reed,  James  A.,  American  senator,  175. 

Reform  Bill  of  1832,  the,  284. 

Regent's  Sword,  peninsula  of  the,  100. 

Reign  of  Terror,  the,  284. 

Republican  party,  the,  257. 

Revolution,  the,  32. 

Rhode  Island,  14. 

Ribaut,  Jean,  French  navigator,  7. 

Richelieu,  river,  4. 

Richelieu,  Cardinal  de,  French  states- 
man, 10, 


Richmond,  Virginia,  191. 

Richmond,  Charles  Alexander,  president 
of  Union  College,  49. 

Rio  Grande,  the,  4. 

Roberts,  Lord,  British  general,  292. 

Roberval,  Sieur  de,  viceroy  of  Canada,  7. 

Robinson,  Edward,  American  Biblical 
scholar,  62. 

Rochambeau,  Comte  de,  French  general, 
142. 

Rodgers,  John,  American  clergyman,  25. 

Rogers,  Publius  V.,  trustee  of  Hamilton 
College,  41. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  the,  98. 

Roman  supremacy,  repudiated  in  Eng- 
land, 11. 

Rome,  192,  195,  208,  209,  262. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  American  presi- 
dent, 85,  91,  94,  126,  129;  tribute  to, 
217-226. 

Root,  Oren,  professor  of  mathematics, 
Hamilton  College,  23,  42. 

Root,  Oren,  Jr.,  professor  of  mathemat- 
ics, 23,  42. 

Royal  Grants,  the,  61. 

Rumania,  97,  207. 

Russia,  10,  97,  100,  101,  207,  262,  263, 
268,  285. 

Saint  Augustine,  Florida,  7. 

St.  Clair,  Arthur,  American  general,  33. 

Saint  Croix,  river,  7. 

Saint  Gaudens,  Augustus,  sculptor,  141, 

143. 
Saint  Gaudens,  Louis,  sculptor,  141,  143. 
Saint  Lawrence,  river,  4,  6,  12,  13,  20. 
St.  Leger,  Barry,  British  officer,  20,  21. 
St.  Louis,  Missouri,  133. 
Samoa,  97. 
San  Francisco,  144. 
Sanger,  Jedediah,  27. 
Santo  Domingo,  97. 

Saratoga,  surrender  of  Burgoyne  at,  21. 
Savannah,  116. 
Saxons,  the,  283. 
Scandinavia,  285. 
Schenectady,  New  York,  26, 45, 46, 47, 86. 


312 


INDEX 


Schuyler,  Philip,  American  general,  25  f ., 

33. 
Scotland,  30,  31,  94. 
Scott,  James  Brown,  American  publicist, 

297,  298. 
Second  Empire,  the,  in  France,  284. 
Self-poise,  a  characteristic  of  the  Dutch, 

89. 
Senecas,  Iroquois  tribe,  5,  6,  29,  30. 
Sergeant,  John,  27. 

Seward,  Thomas  W.,  trustee  of  Hamil- 
ton College,  41. 
Seward,     William     Henry,     American 

statesman,  161. 
Seymour,    Horatio,    governor    of   New 

York,  41. 
Shakspere,  William,  11,  95. 
Shantung,  Chinese  province,  100. 
Shaw  Monument,  the,  in  Boston,  191. 
Sherman,  James  Schoolcraft,  American 

vice-president,  memorial  address  on, 

65-09. 
Sherman,  Richard  U.,  65. 
Sherman,  Willett,  65. 
Sherman,  William  Tecumseh,  American 

general,  address  on,  115-118. 
Shiloh,  battle  of  (1862),  116. 
Shipman,  Andrew  J.,  81. 
Siberia,  102. 

Sigma  Phi,  college  fraternity,  46  f. 
Silesia,  286. 

Silver  Purchase  Act,  the,  107. 
Slavery,  overthrow  of,  123-127. 
Smith,  William  Alden,  American  senator, 

183. 
Society    in    Scotland    for    Propagating 

Christian  Knowledge,  the,  28,  30. 
Soto,  Fernando  de,  Spanish  explorer,  7. 
South  America,  221,  222,  265,  271,  272, 

279,  296  f . 
South  Carolina,  14. 
Spain,  96,  220,  268,  279,  285,  286;  decline 

of,  8  f.,  147. 
Spanish  Succession,  War  of  the,  286. 
Speer,  Emory,  American  jurist,  260. 
Spencer,  Joshua  A.,  American  lawyer 

and  trustee,  41,  61. 


Spenser,  Edmund,  English  poet,  11. 
Stadacona,  Indian  village,  4. 
States  General,  the,  in  France,  284. 
Steuben,  Baron  Frederick  William  von, 

Prussian-American  general,  35,  36,  37. 
Storrs,  Henry  Randolph,  American  con- 
gressman, 61. 
Story,  Joseph,  American  jurist,  233. 
Strong,  William  L.,  mayor  of  New  York, 

85,  87. 
Stryker,  Melancthon  Woolsey,  president 

of  Hamilton  College,  41,  42. 
Stuyvesant,   Peter,   Dutch  governor  of 

New  York,  86,  90. 
Suffren  de  Saint-Tropez,  Pierre  Andre 

de,  French  admiral,  144. 
Sullivan,  John,  American  general,  33. 
Supreme  Court,  the,  289  f. 
Susquehanna,  river,  5,  6,  20,  31. 
Sweden,  10. 
Swedes,  the,  87. 
Swettenham,  Sir  Alexander,  governor  of 

Jamaica,  157. 
Switzerland,  285. 

Tadousac,  7. 

Tennessee,  7. 

Teutonic  race,  the,  145. 

Third  Republic,  the,  in  France,  284. 

Thirty  Years'  War,  the,  10,  281. 

Thornton,  William,  American  architect, 
190,  195,  204. 

Throckmorton,  refugee,  89. 

Ticonderoga,  4,  8. 

Tien-tsin,  China,  262. 

Tilden,  Samuel  Jones,  American  states- 
man, 269. 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  French  states- 
man and  writer,  quoted,  55,  290  f . 

Tonquin,  100. 

Torrey,  John,  American  botanist,  77. 

Tracy,  Marquis  de,  viceroy  of  Canada,  13. 

Trade  Commission,  the,  253,  254,  256. 

Tryon  county,  New  York,  57. 

Turgot,  Baron  de,  French  minister,  144. 

Turkey,  97,  271. 

Turks,  the,  283. 


INDEX 


313 


Turtle,  the,  Iroquois  clan,  6. 
Tuttle,  Timothy,  27. 
Tutuila,  97. 

Union  College,  founding  of,  26,  45  f . ; 

aided  by  a  state  lottery,  39  f„  48  f.,  77; 

address  at,  45-59. 
Union  League  Club  of  Chicago,   the, 

address  before,  259-266. 
Union  League  Club  of  New  York,  the, 

109;  addresses  before,  123-127,  217- 

226. 
Union  League  Club  of  Philadelphia,  the, 

address  before,  249-258. 
Upson,  Anson  Judd,  professor  of  rhetoric, 

43. 
Utica,  New  York,  37,  40,  41,  61,  65,  66, 

67,  119. 
Utica  Trust  and  Deposit  Company,  the, 

66. 
Utrecht,  Treaty  of  (1713),  154,  286. 

Valley  Forge,  35. 

Van  Amringe,  John  Howard,  dean  of 
Columbia  College,  76. 

Van  Brunt,  Charles  H.,  American  jurist, 
address  on,  245  ff. 

Van  Cortlandt,  Pierre,  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of  New  York,  25. 

Vanderbilt,  Frederick  William,  American 
capitalist,  135. 

Van  Rensselaer,  Stephen, '  the  Patroon,' 
19. 

Venetians,  the,  102. 

Venezuela,  97,  98. 

Venezuela  boundary  controversy,  the, 
107,  269,  272. 

Vergennes,  Comte  de,  French  minister, 
141. 

Vermont,  112. 

Verplanck,  Gulian,  regent  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  State  of  New  York,  26,  45. 

Verrazano,  Giovanni  da,  Italian  naviga- 
tor, 7. 

Vicksburg,  capture  of  (1863),  116. 

Vienna,  95,  283. 

Vienna,  Congress  of  (1815),  288. 


Villa  Mirafiori,  the,  in  Rome,  195. 
Virginia,  7,  8,  14,  191,  192,  292. 
Virginia,  University  of,  191. 

Wales,  Salem  Howe,  journalist,  217. 

Walters,  Henry,  American  capitalist,  195. 

Wampum,  demonetization  of,  87  f. 

Washington,  city,  123,  222;  architect- 
ural problems  of,  189-204. 

Washington,  George,  American  presi- 
dent, 13,  20,  21,  33,  34,  35,  36,  102, 105, 
144,  190,  195,  197,  200,  201,  202,  264. 

Webster,  DanieL  American  statesman, 
21,  296. 

Wei-hai-wei,  100. 

Wells,  Samuel,  27. 

West  India  Company,  the,  89. 

West  Indies,  the,  137. 

Westphalia,  Congress  of  (1648),  288. 

Westphalia,  Peace  of  (1648),  281,  286. 

West  Virginia,  7. 

Wetmore,  Edmund  A.,  trustee  of  Hamil- 
ton College,  41. 

Wheelock,  Eleazar,  American  educator, 
18,  19,  21,  22,  24,  27,  28,  29,  30,  31,  32, 
72. 

Whitaker,  Nathaniel,  18. 

White  City,  the,  194,  199,  207. 

White  House,  the,  189,  190,  195, 197,  201 
f.,  203. 

Whitesboro,  New  York,  40. 

Whitestown,  New  York,  26,  35,  87,  45, 
61. 

Williams,  John  Sharp,  American  senator, 
180,  183  f.,  185. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  American  novelist, 
71. 

Wisconsin,  University  of,  73. 

Wolf,  the,  Iroquois  clan,  6. 

Wolfe,  James,  English  general,  14,  27. 

Wood  Creek,  20,  61. 

Yale,  Elihu,  72. 
Yangtze,  the,  100. 
Yates,  Abram,  Jr.,  26,  45. 
Yates,  Joseph,  26,  45. 
Yorktown,  surrender  of  (1781),  35. 


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